


Light Of My Life

by doujinbag



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 1940s, Angst, Dark, Insanity, Lolita, M/M, Minor Character Death, Obsession, Pedophilia, Rape/Non-con Elements, underage consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 23:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3227150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doujinbag/pseuds/doujinbag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.</p><p>--</p><p>Levi is an English professor from France who comes to America in hopes of finding a new job. However, once he meets the woman whose house he will be rooming in for a short time, he falls hopelessly in love with her son, Eren— who is only fifteen years old.<br/>Levi does anything he can to keep Eren with him forever and ever. This is a tale of lust and obsession, and the feeling which most people confuse to be love.</p><p>--</p><p>Based on the novel <i>Lolita</i> by Vladimir Nabokov and the 1997 film adaptation directed by Adrian Lyne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> I FINALLY GOT AROUND TO WRITING THE REAL THING!  
> This first chapter is rather short, but the others will be much longer, I promise. Shockingly, there actually won't be too many chapters, but I think the story is told best that way. When Nabokov wrote _Lolita,_ the book was divided into three parts which contained a varying number of chapters each, but nearly all the chapters were pretty short. I'm sort of doing my own interpretation on that.? Idk. I'm blabbing.
> 
> So, obviously, there is a huge pedophilia warning for this story. Eren is 15 and Levi is 35, and that's obviously not right. While Eren does consent to what happens, there are also implied elements of rape in the story, but in a weird way I guess?  
> I am aware that the way I am writing this story may cause people to get confused and accuse me of trying to romanticize pedophilia. I am not doing such a thing, I promise. It is from a pedophile's point of view, therefore, he's not going to see his actions as problematic when they are, in fact, _extremely_ problematic. Please keep this in mind.
> 
> Anyways, without further ado, I give to you my screwed up little story<3

_“She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”_  
 _Vladimir Nabokov,_ Lolita

\---

Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. My Eren.

He was the son of an overbearing woman in the morning as he sat up groggily in his bed. He was a deadly little demon of a boy every time he wore his button-up shirt. He was outgoing and feisty with his friends, and he always got into trouble somehow with the school’s headmaster nearly every week. He was all of these things, and yet, whenever he was in my arms, he was mine and only mine and that was all that could ever matter to me.

 

However, perhaps there would be no existing tale to tell if it had not been for Eren’s predecessor. Yes, it still stands true that Eren was not my first love, although certainly, he was my last and everything in between. I was only a teenage boy, not any older than Eren was at our first meet, when I fell madly in love with Isabel. It was a short summer-long affair, but I knew upon our first kiss that her spirit would continue to haunt me for the rest of my days. We did all we wished during our short time together, running along the seashore and making fun of our parents’ terrible English. (As we were both beautifully fluent in our mother tongue of French and English, but she always spoke both languages much clearer than I could bring myself to.)

We were each other’s first lovers, but only two months after we gave up our purity to each other, she died, casting an eternal winter over me despite that summer in Paris being particularly hot. My heart froze to death in the middle of August.

 

Twenty years later, after spending quite some time in England, I had decided to take up a teaching position at a university in America. It was somewhere remote, but that was most likely for the best. However, the summer before I was to begin my job as an English professor, a friend I had in one of the northeast states, Hannes, offered to let me stay with him in order to get settled in to the country. However, upon arrival, I discovered that his house had been tragically lost in a fire.

An old family friend of his, Mrs. Carla Jaeger, kindly offered her home to me upon hearing the news, and considering I had nowhere else to go, I accepted.

The moment my cab arrived in front of the Jaeger household, I noticed that the lawn was overgrown and the siding on the building was deteriorating, obvious signs that Mrs. Jaeger did not care all too much about caring for her home. I, as a man who despises all sorts of disorganization and filth, was already quite displeased with what this woman had to offer.

A girl holding a broom greeted me at the door. Mrs. Jaeger’s maid, I presumed. “Are you Mr. Ackerman?” she asked quietly. I nodded.

“Mikasa! If that’s Mr. Ackerman, tell him I’ll be down in one!” a voice shouted from up the large staircase.

Mikasa opened the door wider for me to enter and seemed rather pleased that I didn’t have any dirt on the bottom of my shoes. “She’ll be down in one,” she repeated, rushing back off to go clean the kitchen.

Soon enough, Mrs. Jaeger came down the stairs, wearing a dress that made all the wrong parts of her body stand out. She wasn’t a particularly pretty woman, except for maybe her eyes and the way she did her hair. It seemed almost as if she was trying too hard to make a good impression with the way her makeup was caked onto her face. “Monsieur Ackerman,” she said, flaunting a cigarette between her fingers. “What a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She inhaled from the cigarette for a short moment before blowing the smoke off to the side.

“Pleasure,” I repeated, fiddling with the brim of my hat.

“Well, come along, let’s show you around the house now.” She led me up the stairs after taking my briefcase and setting it on the floor. I followed her, trying my best to keep my rather rude thoughts to myself. “Grisha and I- that’s Mr. Jaeger, you see- traveled to France for a short time a few years before he died. Lovely country, you’re really quite privileged to have grown up there!”

“Indeed,” I said, eyeing the messy house with a bit of a hidden scowl.

“I’m sorry that the place is such a mess. It was just on such a short notice, you know!” Mrs. Jaeger exclaimed as if reading my mind.

“I’m sure it’s all right, Mrs. Jaeger,” I lied politely.

“Oh, please. Just call me Carla.”

I concealed my grimace from her eyes. “Of course,” I replied.

“Right through there, that’s where you’d have your room. If you do choose to stay with us, of course,” the woman who insisted I call her Carla said. “There’s plenty of space for a bed, a desk, whatever it is you may need. And for only twenty dollars a month rent, you can’t beat the price.”

 _No, but I can certainly beat out of this town,_ I thought reluctantly to myself.

She tried her best to entertain me, to keep me interested in the house. But I had no interest in the bore of a woman and her house smelled of horrid cooking mistakes and cheap perfume bought at the drugstore, neither of which being things I had any longing to be around. As I stood there in her obnoxiously yellow kitchen, I took a glance at a timetable from my coat pocket to figure out if there were any trains departing that day to take me far away from the woman.

“What’s that?” she asked, already lighting her third cigarette since I’d walked into her house.

“Timetable. For train times.”

“Oh, I see you’re not very pleased with the house,” she said, sounding horrendously disappointed. “I know it’s not too becoming of a place, but I assure you, I will do my best to make you feel at home.”

“I know that, Mrs. Jaeger- er, Carla, but–”

“Well, don’t say _no_ until you’ve seen the backyard, please,” she requested, pulling me out the back door to the yard.

There was nothing special about it aside from a rather unhealthy overgrowth of plants bundled up in one plot that I assumed was intended to be referred to as a garden. It didn’t look much like a garden to me, but once again, I bit my tongue and held back my remarks.

Carla continued to babble on about this and that, the flowers and trees and the ivy growing up the side of the house, and I was prepared to tell her I really wasn’t interested– but then I looked to my right and saw a boy spread out on the lawn. When I saw him there, lying in the green pricks of grass with a book in his hands, his legs swinging to and fro as he sprawled out on his stomach, I knew I had to stay. It was as if Isabel herself had weaved her way into this child’s body, her soul staring back at me through those green eyes guarded by a mess of ruddy brown hair. I felt the incarnation of a love that once was and that was once lost circulating in my veins, making my heart pound only a beat faster with every step closer to him in the green grass of the backyard.

He smiled at me- this green-eyed prince _smiled_ at me- and I felt a surge of lust burst through my body, spreading warmth through my limbs and up to my head. And surely, the only thoughts that were now circulating in that brain of mine were full of him and only him, and how I could love him and how he, too, could love _me_. There was no doubt in my mind that while Isabel was the finest nymphet I had ever known in my life, this boy was a faunlet version of her. There would never be another chance for me to see such a beautiful creation in my lifetime, for finding a faunlet is the rarest occasion a man so lucky could ever encounter.

“What’s his name?” I questioned, turning to Carla.

“Who? Oh, him?” She pointed to her son, who was now merely glancing at us from behind the pages of his book. “That’s my Eren. He’s a handful, but don’t you mind. If you do, in fact, choose to stay with us, I’ll make sure he’s far out of the picture.”

“No need to worry,” I assured her. “I’m sure he won’t be a bother.”

Carla seemed rather displeased with my reply, so she shifted the conversation back over to the topic of her wilting begonias. It was there, in that moment, that I made the decision to stay and live in the Jaeger household, no matter how horrible it was to have to put up with the mother. Still to this day, I am not yet sure what kind of a decision it was.

 

Take a normal man. Now show him a seemingly ordinary group of schoolchildren and ask him to pick out the most astonishing one. This normal man, under these circumstances, might pick the teacher’s pet with straight A’s on every assignment, or perhaps the child who looks most mature for her age, beautiful with every ounce of makeup she swipes onto her face. This normal man, however, would be miserably mistaken.

It takes someone absolutely insane to pick out that special faunlet or nymphet. A child whose gift is unknown to most everyone around them. Everyone but me, a madman with only a desire to fulfill his lovelorn dreams. Before you assume, you must know I am, indeed, quite mad. This has been known to myself for years. But never once would I take back my gift of finding that special faunlet in a group of many.

He was fifteen, and I had been thirty for five years. And yet, every time I looked at him, I felt no years between us at all.

Oh, look at this tangle of thorns.


	2. II

During my first couple of weeks living in the house, I admired Eren from afar. Every move he made, every song he sang, every little thing he did to purposely annoy his mother, I loved all of it more than I could ever love seeing anything.

One particular night, when it was long past sunset and I was still awake due to both my lifelong diagnosis of insomnia and writing heated little nothings about no one other than Eren in my journal, the devil himself entered the doorway of my room, frowning as he rubbed his eyes sleepily.

“I heard you writing on your typewriter earlier,” he yawned. “It woke me up.”

I glanced over at my typewriter and immediately closed it up with trembling fingers. “I’m terribly sorry,” I apologized. “I’ll do my best to be quiet from now on.”

Eren nodded but still seemed as if he needed something. He sighed heavily and adjusted the leg on his pajama pants before turning around and trotting back to his room, his pajama shirt raising ever so slightly to reveal to me the tan skin on his back. I didn’t want to avert my eyes from him for a second.

Due to the constant attention I paid to him, I learned more about Eren than I’d ever learned of any young boy in my life. He preferred dancing to the radio _only_ when his mother was trying to focus on an important phone call. He would often purposely leave a few articles of clothing hanging on the drying line outside just to have an excuse to get out of the house later at night, and he liked leaving his sticky chewing gum everywhere; and I do mean _everywhere._ Messes formed by Eren were the only messes I never had a problem dealing with.

 

I soon came to discover that from all seven days of the week, Sunday was Eren’s least favorite. He despised going to church, and he especially hated being told to get ready for such religious activities by his mother. He always tried to find ways to stall going to the chapel, and most of those schemes usually included having mindless conversations with me instead of getting dressed.

“Mr. Levi, sir,” he said one morning, as his mother waited around for him downstairs. He and I both knew that the “sir” in his speech was put there only for flaunted decoration, and the “Mr.” before my name was completely unnecessary, but neither of us said a word about it. “May I come in?” He stood in the doorway to my study, his shirt being buttoned up only halfway. It had to have been on purpose, the devilish child.

“Of course,” I said, clearing some papers from my desk and shoving them away in the drawer. “Come in, Eren.”

He walked on over to the chair that sat alone in the middle of the room and sighed, bending his body in half over the back of it. And my god, was it a sight. He rocked the chair back and forth with his head nearly touching the seat, making a bit of a silent whine in the back of his throat before coming back up. Of course, he had more chewing gum between his sugarcoated teeth.

“Have you been having trouble sleeping?” he asked, sitting down in the chair with his jean-clad legs spread apart.

“You can’t imagine,” I replied, faking a glance down at the wooden desktop.

“Mom says I’m a nuisance to you. What’s a nuisance?”

“A nuisance? An annoyance. I promise, your mother is… mistaken on that.”

“Hm. What if I want to be an annoyance?”

“Try harder.”

“That’s good advice.”

“Indeed.”

He stood up and walked over to me, making me swallow the lump of beautiful nervousness bundled up in the back of my throat. “Do you think I look weird?”

“Excuse me?”

“Jean says I look weird. But he’s got no room to talk, with that horse face of his,” Eren said. He sat down promptly on my lap and looked at me, emerald eyes piercing into my gray stones. “He’s not right, is he?”

“Of course he’s not right. If he does indeed have a horse face, he’s most likely jealous,” I said.

“Probably.” Eren sighed and looked at my desk, grabbing my journal from the corner of it. “What’s this?”

“My- er… My private writings.”

“Private? Like a diary?”

“I suppose,” I replied slowly.

“Can I read?” He grinned, blowing a small bubble with his gum. I could smell the sweet sugar that lingered on his breath, inviting me to come closer.

“Maybe someday,” I said.

At that, he pulled his gum out of his mouth and smacked it onto a page in my journal, thankfully not reading how many times his name, his beautiful, beautiful name, was written on it. All the lines full of _Eren Eren Eren Eren_ now had a memento to go with it.

“Eren! Are you ready for church?” Carla yelled up the stairs.

“Yes, Mo-ther-r-r!” Eren called back. Quite loudly, might I add. He pulled his gum back off the paper and hopped off my lap. “Gotta run, Levi,” he said with a smirk, dashing out of the room just as quickly as he’d intruded my heart. This lonely man, if I may refer to myself in such third-party way, finally had his heart occupied by someone worthwhile for the first time in twenty years.

 

Every Sunday brought Eren somehow closer to me. It was some time towards the end of June that he was still in his pajamas at the time he should have been dressed and ready for more religious time with Carla, walking up the stairs with one lone slipper on his foot. I sat in my chair reading the newspaper when he walked into my room, a tray of food in his hands. He even had a small bell to ring by hand, as if he was a personal servant of some kind.

Oh, the things I was imagining.

“Good morning, sir,” he said, a glimmer caught in his eyes. He set the tray down on the small table before me, and I watched him carefully as he leaned over in front of me. He looked up and seemed to swallow something in his mouth before saying, “Don’t tell Mom that I ate all your bacon.”

He walked back out of the room as simply as he’d come in, but we all know that there is nothing simple about that fact. Why did the way that he carried himself as he walked excite me so?

“Eren Jaeger, you had better be out of those pajamas and in something decent for church within the next five minutes or I’m leaving without you!” Carla screamed from downstairs. I could almost ram my own head through the wall every time her shrill voice sent a bloodcurdling message down my spine.

“I’m not going to church!” Eren retaliated.

“Yes, you _are!”_

“I am not going to church and you can’t make me!” Eren huffed and slammed his bedroom door shut, rattling the whole house a bit.

“Fine! You can stay here! It’s going on _your_ conscience!” Carla exclaimed. “At least brush your hair for once!”

“I already brushed my hair!” Eren shouted through his oak wood door. I did my best to pretend I wasn’t interested in the conversation, but I couldn’t direct my attention away from it despite how hard I tried.

“Oh, really? When?”

“Two months ago!”

Carla groaned loudly and once the front door opened and closed, Eren left his room. He looked at me and sighed before going to run down the stairs, leaving me to sit in the dull darkness of my room, with only the quiet hum of the ceiling fan to keep me company.

I soon folded up the newspaper in my hands and made my way downstairs, only to find Eren sitting on the couch looking rather bored with himself. I went into the kitchen to retrieve an apple from the refrigerator and cleaned it off with my shirt before making my way back into the living room.

“Whatcha got?” Eren asked, perking up at the sight of something in my hand.

“Just an apple,” I replied, sitting down next to him.

“I like apples,” he said. “My favorite fruits are bananas, though. But apples are good.” He smirked and reached over to take my apple from me, and I didn’t even bother putting up a fight. Slowly, he began to toss it into the air, catching it in his fist perfectly each time it came back down. “What’s a conscience?”

“A conscience?”

“Is that like another word for nuisance? You know Mom calls me that a lot.”

“No, not the same as nuisance,” I said, watching his hand intently. “A conscience is something that lets you know the difference between good and bad. Makes you feel guilty about doing bad things.”

“Oh.” Eren was quiet as he focused on the apple, his eyes moving up and down to follow it. When he spoke again, I nearly choked on my own breath. “I don’t think I have one of those, then.”

One would certainly hope not.

He finally stopped throwing the apple and simply held it in his hands, looking at it. “Want your apple back?” he asked, looking at me.

“Mm. Yes, please,” I said, reaching to snatch it from his hand. He pulled his arm back and laughed.

“Too bad.” He bit into it right before my eyes, drips of juice dribbling past his lips and down his chin. He got comfortable by leaning against the armrest of the sofa and stretching his legs across my lap, watching me with enlarged eyes each time he took another bite. “Still want it?” he teased, dangling it by the stem, showing his five pristine bite marks to me.

“Why wouldn’t I?” My face was stone solid, not changing expression at all as I spoke. Eren seemed pleased by this response and giggled before moving around, his feet sliding so gently against my lap. Gentle grazes soon turned into rougher rubbing, and I couldn’t conceal the burning sensation in my trousers as I leaned my head against the back of the couch, sighing in a deep tone.

“This apple is really juicy,” Eren said absentmindedly, gazing at the fruit in his hands before glancing at me again, moving his foot slower and harder down against my heated groin. He nearly said something until the telephone rang, causing him to jump up and scramble over to it. I was left with a growing problem in not only my pants but also in my mind– I could not tell if Eren was taunting me or telling me something. “Hello?” he said once he picked up the phone. “No, she’s not here right now. Yes, this is her son. No. No. Yeah. Okay. Bye.” He looked at me and took another bite from his apple before running off, a grin permanently taped to his face.

 

Oh, how I wished for a terrible disaster to strike the area. Whether it be spontaneous combustion, an earthquake, a fatal train derailment– _anything_ that would instantly eliminate Eren’s mother from the picture, as well as everyone else for miles around. Eren, in my arms, the only person I would ever have to worry about again.

Their fights and petty arguments soon wore me down, the only amusement I found in them being how Eren almost always managed to get his way. He certainly had his way of doing things, I could tell, but Carla wasn’t pleased with this fact.

On Wednesdays, they fought over Eren making his bed. On Fridays, it was whether or not Eren was going to eat the wretched meal Carla made. On Tuesdays, it was over dishes, _always_ the dishes. Finally, it seemed like Carla had had enough of Eren’s incessant protesting.

“I told you six times to do these dishes!” she yelled, unaware that I was watching from above the banister of the staircase.

“And I told you six times I’m not going to!”

“I’m not wasting my time arguing with you.”

 _“I’m_ not wasting my time doing stupid dishes!”

“You’re doing them, and that is _final.”_ Carla looked up the stairs at me and sighed, as if trying to gain my sympathy. “Levi, I’m going out to my hairdresser appointment. I’ll be back in a few hours. Do _not_ let him leave this house, he is being _punished!”_

Eren let out a loud groan and crossed his arms, raising his feet in the air as Mikasa swept the floor. Carla left, and once again, we were the only people in the house aside from the young maid, who liked to keep her nose out of our business, respectfully.

I went back into my room to sit at my desk and began to write, and what I wrote was not anything special, simply my typical love declarations for the boy I could not yet claim as my own. _Je t’aime, je t’aime. Eren, mon amour, je t’aime tellement. Laisse-moi t'emporter loin d'ici._

I do not know how long it was that I sat there at my desk and lost myself in my own little world, but soon enough, Eren entered my room, not saying a word as he trumped over to the mirror by my bed. I watched carefully as he stared at his reflection in the mirror, his face making a rather big deal out of his frown. If frowns could talk, this one would have been loud.

I brought myself to the end of my journal entry and set it aside for safe keeping. Leaning back in my chair, I crossed my arms and watched rather humorously as Eren continued to sigh here and there. _“Ow,”_ he exclaimed at last. “Oo- _owww.”_

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

Eren looked up at me and furrowed his eyebrows. “There’s something in my eye.” He walked over to me and leaned across my desk, staring me straight in the face. “Can you see it?”

I gently took my fingers to his face, getting him to look upwards so I could better see into his eye. “I’m not sure if I see anything,” I said. “You know, if you had told a Swiss peasant to remove something from your eye, he would have used the tip of his tongue.”

Eren’s eyes widened at that. “No way,” he said. I nodded, trying my best to prove my point. He waited a moment before saying, “Do it, then.”

I could feel my heart pound feverishly against the inside of my ribcage, and I was afraid it was planning to escape my body and fall out through my chest right onto the wooden surface of my desk. I leaned in close to his face– this was as close to those green eyes, those supple lips, as I had _ever_ been– and licked against Eren’s eyelid softly before pulling away a few inches. He stared at me and smiled, our noses almost touching. “Wow,” he said in quiet awe.

“And now the other eye,” I said, moving my mouth over to the eye that hadn’t even been bothering him. Once I finished my work, his eyes fluttered a bit and he simply waited there, a silent bliss lingering between his face and mine for only a moment before he took off, rocketing out of my room like his tail was on fire. With every passing moment we spent together in that house, he put me more and more underneath his spell.

 

“I want to be an actor.”

All three of us– Carla, Eren, and I– sat on the porch swing in front of the house, Eren using his legs to swing us back and forth. He looked up at me and sighed quietly; I couldn’t tell if it was discontent or not. “I mean, I _could_ be an actor, don’t you think? I have that sort of grace, a kind of sad beauty.”

I smiled. If only he knew the nameless things that ran through my head at his seemingly innocent words.

“You’d make a good actor,” Carla said, and for a moment I was almost appalled at the fact she complimented her son until she added, “you lie enough anyways.”

“I do not lie.”

“Mm.” I sighed and glanced at the empty lemonade glass in my hand, twirling it around a bit. “I’ll get you some more lemonade, Levi,” Carla said, getting up to go fetch the pitcher.

Eren looked at me and rolled his eyes. _“God,_ you’re so oblivious.”

“What?”

“You! You’re so dumb sometimes, and you’re supposed to be a smart professor.” Eren sighed and leaned back, kicking his leg out in front of him. “She likes you.”

“Your mother?”

“Mhm. I can tell she just absolutely _fawns_ over you sometimes.”

“I haven’t noticed.”

“That’s shocking.”

“Perhaps I just haven’t cared to.”

Eren grinned and stuck his tongue out at me before pulling another wad of gum out of his mouth and shoving it into my mouth with his fingers. Before I had a chance to spit it out in my hand (not that I _really_ wanted to, but I assumed Eren would raise an eyebrow if I didn’t), Carla arrived back out onto the porch to pour me some more lemonade. “What are you two all cozy about?” she asked.

“I was telling Levi about that play we saw a couple years ago. It _really_ inspired me to want to be an actor, Mom,” Eren fibbed without a second thought. I wished I could be as quick with my thoughts as he was.

“Oh, that play, that play… Yes, I remember. Erwin Smith wrote it himself. Oh, he’s a lovely playwright, Levi. Have you heard of his work?” Carla said.

“I- no, I have not,” I admitted. “But now I’ll have to.”

Eren smiled and leaned against me, and I tried to conceal the fact I still had his gum in my mouth. He wrapped an arm around me and Carla gave him a look that almost seemed to hold mass amounts of envy within her eyes. “Eren, I think it’s time for you to go to bed,” she said finally.

_“Mo-o-om.”_

“Don’t _‘Mom’_ me. Bed, Eren. Now.”

Eren grumbled and got up, storming inside the house angrily. “My mother is a _sourpuss,”_ he hissed loudly.

Carla sighed once we were sure Eren was upstairs and got closer to me, which made me uncomfortable in the slightest way. “I am so sorry for his lack of manners,” she said. “But, soon we won’t have to worry about that.”

“What do you mean?” I questioned, looking at her with darkened eyes.

“Next week, he’s going off to camp. I did tell you that, didn’t I?” Carla said.

“No,” I replied. “No, you did not.”

“Ah, well now you know. He’s going off to summer camp until the end of August, which means we’ll _finally_ have some peace and quiet around the house. Doesn’t that sound nice?” She hugged me, and it took all the self-restraint I possessed in my body to keep from shoving her away.

“Fantastic,” I said monotonously, running Eren’s gum all over the inside of my mouth. It was not, in fact, fantastic at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you not willing to use Google Translate, the French part that Levi wrote in his journal read "I love you, I love you. Eren, my love, I love you so much. Allow me to take you far away."  
> yayy


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day you nerds (: (: (:

The week leading up to Eren's departure for summer camp was hellish at best. The atmosphere in the house quickly changed from strained to malicious as if overnight, and for the first time in the whole duration of my stay in the Jaeger household, Eren began to lash out at me as well. However, I could not bring myself to be cross with him for his actions; his mother was the root of all evil in that house. As Carla grew more and more impatient with her son's existence in the house, Eren soon became more and more frustrated with his impending doom of being sent off to the summer camp he never had intentions of approaching with a ten-foot pole. Who could blame him?

The day before Eren was due to leave was by far the worst. Carla piled up chore upon chore on the poor boy's shoulders simply to keep him out of her hair. It had become quite evident to me that Carla showed nothing but uttermost dislike for her own son. Every time that woman opened her mouth to speak— or, more correctly,  _scream—_ I felt a massive need for a bottle of migraine medication.

"Eren, I want all of these nametags sewed onto your clothes by dinner or you're not eating!" she shouted— quite unnecessarily, might I add; Eren was standing not even six feet away from her.

"I don't want to go to some stupid camp, and you can't make me!" Eren said, chewing more gum as his way of relieving stress. Had I not been so entranced by him, I would have ignored their whole conversation, but alas, such a task was impossible for me to manage.

"I am your mother, therefore I can and will make you go!" Carla said, her eyes burning right through her son. "Mr. Ackerman thinks it's a good idea,  _I_ think it's a good idea, and you are going!" I was not sure how, exactly, I'd been dragged into the topic, but Carla had her way with manipulating situations with Eren, forcing him to believe that I did not want him there. My burning hatred for Carla only seemed to grow with each passing second.

Eren groaned and slammed his clothes trunk closed before storming out of his room, cheeks burning red with fury. "Double-crosser!" he hissed at me as he approached me in the hall, quickly slapping my arm with brutal force and going downstairs as he fumed. My arm was in pain from the surprising amount of strength Eren possessed, but even the stinging in my arm could not compare to the ache I felt in my heart. The last thing I ever wanted was for Eren to hate me.

However, once dinnertime arrived, Eren had indeed sewed his nametags on each article of clothing in his trunk and all malice previously directed at me seemed to be forgotten. He was sure to rub his foot against mine under the table, hidden from Carla's view. As his sock moved over the toe of my house slipper again and again, all seemed well, the only thing that pained me now being the realization that this was the last dinner I would share with Eren for a long time. I didn't sleep at all that night.

 

Now, my dear readers, the next day may feel as if it was nothing more than the product of a hopelessly obsessed man's imagination. Nevertheless, I promise to you that the events that took place that day were just as real as the breath in my lungs.

Carla was just as high strung as ever as she bustled all around the house, making sure that not a single thing was forgotten. "Eren, I told you to put your suitcase in the car an hour ago!" she called.

Eren sighed in defeat and finally went to go shove his suitcase into the small car as Mikasa helped Carla carry a large lunch basket into the trunk of the car. As all those things were packed away into the little automobile, Eren's departure suddenly felt so  _final,_ and it all came crashing down on me at once. I could not tear myself away from the window of my room as I watched them from above.

Just as Carla started the car, Eren looked up at me from so far away and suddenly jumped up, his glistening emerald eyes widening so big I feared they may have fallen out of his head. He ran out of the car as Carla screamed,  _"oh, now what?!"_  and darted up the stairs, his feet pounding against each step almost harder than my own heart was beating. I quickly stepped away from the window, standing in the middle of my room as I smoothed out the creases in my pajama shirt. And, soon enough, Eren was bursting through the door of my room, grinning as he wrapped his legs around my waist and his arms around my neck.

"Miss me," he said before closing his eyes and kissing me. He was inexperienced and I could tell, but my lips tingled with a flame of desire anyways as his mouth moved against mine. Once he broke away, he gave me the most devilish smirk I'd ever seen before running away for a final time. I did not want to let him go so soon; my hands strayed after him even minutes after he disappeared.

And miss him I did.

Shortly after Carla drove away with Eren safely inside the car, I barged into his room and made myself at home on his bed, reveling in the scent of him that still danced in his sheets.

I looked above my head to see a picture pinned to the wall above the headboard, and it immediately caught my attention. It was a drawing, two silhouettes appearing to be embracing with tiny hearts surrounding them. I could only barely contain my excitement as I saw the letters  _L.A._ in one heart and  _E.J._ in another.

My daze was soon broken through when I heard Mikasa's voice ringing up the stairs, and I scrambled to stand up before she appeared in the doorway. "Mr. Ackerman!" she said, looking around in my study until she realized I was in Eren's room. "Mr. Ackerman?" She gave me a confused look but shook it off as she held out an envelope to me. "Mrs. Jaeger left this for you." I took the envelope from her and examined it, seeing  _Levi_ written in cursive on the outside of it. "I'm leaving, I'll be back in a few weeks. Take care." Mikasa turned out of the room, and as she walked down the hallway, I swore I could hear her mumble, "What in  _hell_ is he doing in there?"

I opened the envelope and realized Carla had written me a letter, so I settled down on Eren's bed yet again to read it in comfort.

There was nothing comfortable about the letter.

 _My dearest Levi,_  
 _This is a confession of my love. I have been lonely for so long, but you are the love of my life. Now you know, you know that I love you. Leave now. I cannot bare your presence any longer; my heart cannot take it. Destroy this letter and leave, I beg you. For if I return by dinnertime and find you still there, it can only mean one thing: that you love me as well and wish to be a suited father to my son. If this is not the case, leave both me and Eren behind._  
 _Forever yours,  
_ _Carla Jaeger_

I knew I was faced with a dilemma: either marry Carla and suffer through the consequences of being her husband, or leave forever and never get to see Eren again.

 

Two weeks later, we were married.

It was not a large celebration whatsoever; a few friendly neighbors came over to our backyard and watched as the ordained minister pronounced us as Mr. and Mrs. Levi Ackerman, but no one else was to be seen.

Married life with Carla was just as dreadful as I'd expected it to be. While I did not mind the chores at all (I believe I appreciated a clean house more than she did), I was not a great liar, therefore making it near impossible to pretend I was in love with her. I successfully managed to avoid most of my more sexual duties as a husband, but sadly, not all. I soon came to discover that Carla was just about as much fun in bed as a piece of bread, but then again, at least bread was flexible.

I will not go into detail further than that, as it pains me just to remember, so I will leave it on the simple note that I hated anything to do with Carla and beds. However, I did come to a solution soon enough: sleeping pills.

I found myself at the doctor's, making up a lie about how my insomnia was getting the best of me and I desperately needed something in order to help me sleep. Dr. Zacharias bought it, and I soon found myself holding a small bottle of pills that would solve all of my life's current troubles.

The sleeping pills worked on Carla, as she seemed to love gobbling down medication, and I once again found myself the ability to go to bed without Carla badgering me about sex she was not even good at. All was well.

 

We were at the lake one day when she sickened me with new news about Eren. According to Carla, Eren would not be coming home after camp was over.

"Where, then?" I questioned. "Where is he going?"

"Little Eren is going away to a nice boarding school across the country to instill behavior correction and some sound religious training," Carla stated matter-of-factly. "God knows he needs it."

I could feel my stomach sink as I floated there in the lake, and I knew my eyes were drained of all light. I don't exactly know what it was that kept me from drowning Carla in the murky water right then; her God must have graced me with unexplainable patience.

 

The sleeping pills soon lost effect on Carla and I sought out for stronger ones, explaining to Dr. Zacharias that I needed sedatives strong enough to knock out a cow. He handed me a slightly bigger bottle, telling me they were new and that they were just the thing I was looking for. I thanked him greatly and once again, I was on my way.

However, when I returned home, something felt wrong from the minute I walked in. "Carla?" I called out, making sure the pills were safely hidden away in my pocket. "Carla? Dear, are you home?"

I stopped in the doorway of the kitchen when I saw her sitting at the dining table, a cigarette placed neatly between her fingers. "Oh, Carla, there you are," I said.

Carla ignored me. It didn't hit me until far too late that my journal was sitting right next to her hand. I had been found out.

 _"You,"_ she seethed, standing up and staring at me. "You are  _disgusting."_ She picked up my journal and shook her head in shame. "You are a horrible monster of a man. I am no longer going to be made into a fool by you."

"Carla, now wait a minute—"

"Don't step any closer to me!" she screeched. "Move one inch and I will scream out this window for the police, I swear to you." She had tears in her eyes as she sat her cigarette in the ashtray. "I am going to make sure that you never see that miserable little brat again, do you understand?"

I was frozen. I didn't know what to say to her to make her believe things were not as they seemed; all my sins were clearly written out on the page in such a manner that made it impossible to take them back.

"Let's talk about this," I finally said. "I'll make us a drink, and we can... talk."

I hurried over to begin fixing us drinks, not realizing Carla had already abandoned the room. Just as I turned back around, the telephone rang and I hurried to answer it. "Hello?"

_"Is this Mr. Ackerman?"_

"Yes, it is, why?"

_"It's your wife. I'm sorry, sir, but she's... she's been killed."_

"What? That's ridiculous. She's right here." I turned and looked to see her cigarette still emitting some smoke as it lay in the ashtray, but no sign of Carla. "Carla? There's a man on the phone who says you've been killed. Carla...?"

I spotted the front door standing ajar and left the phone alone as I ran outside, seeing a crowd of people all gathered around a car in the middle of the road. "What's going on? What's... what's happening?" I shoved my way past everyone to see a man looking rather petrified as he sat in the driver's seat of the car.

"I'm so sorry, she just came out of nowhere and I didn't have time to brake and I'm sorry, I'm—"

"Where's my wife?" I asked. A policeman tapped my shoulder with a gloved hand and I whipped around to face him.

"Sir, I'm sorry," he said, crouching down. "Is this Mrs. Ackerman?" He pulled back a newspaper covering her face and I realized I was staring right at her corpse.

"Oh my god," I whispered, falling back against the car and gripping at the exterior.

"Sir. Is this Mrs. Ackerman?" I didn't respond. "Sir, please. Is this Mrs. Ackerman?"

"Yes," I finally nodded. "Oh god, oh my god." I, however, was not crying out to God for mercy— I was stunned with  _relief._

A small girl with her front teeth missing came up to me with a sad look on her face. "She was going to put these in the mailbox," she said with a lisp, placing a few envelopes in my hand. "I'm sorry."

I thanked the girl and walked back to the house in a daze. I was still unable to process that my biggest wish had come true: Carla was completely out of the picture for good.

I burned the letters in the fireplace without even reading them and downed both the drinks I made before returning to Eren's room and taking a much-needed nap in his bed.


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I made a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBWeE7-XN7EX2f4L4GtBsDiE8gSzB-hg6) for this fic

Saying goodbye to the house a couple weeks after Carla's death was not much of a task at all. I didn't feel the need to be surrounded by remnants of Carla's existence, and I felt Eren would benefit from moving away as well. Now with both birth-parents dead and only me left to look after him, I was sure he'd appreciate some new beginnings. All this being said, it didn't take long to pack a suitcase for me and Eren and to get into the car. Once I drove away from that house, I never looked back.

 

The biggest struggle I faced the day I drove away was actually picking Eren up from camp. Not only was the gravelly terrain difficult to drive over, but the camp director simply would not shut her mouth. I did not care about the weather, I did not care to talk about Carla, I simply wanted to get Eren and leave.

"Eren was simply marvelous during his time here," the woman said. "So quick to make friends."

"He does have that little spark about him," I acknowledged. "He is a rather interesting child." Interesting was among the least exciting words on my mind when it came to describing Eren, but of course, I could never say those other words to anyone out loud.

"Where is he?" I finally asked once it was evident that the director was not planning on telling me otherwise anytime soon.

"Oh, I sent Reiner down to the barn to fetch him. He'll be here in a minute, don't you worry."

"Reiner?" I repeated. "Who's Reiner?" She never did answer my question.

In a matter of minutes, Eren appeared before me, lugging his trunk behind him as he walked up the dusty trail. Despite the horrid camp uniform they had placed him in, despite the mud smeared up his calves, despite how he was out of breath as he walked up the trail, he was beautiful. His eyes shone just as bright as ever behind the messy bangs that were growing maybe just a little too long, and his smile sent a rush of warmth through me that was not even comparable to the heat sticking to my neck from the hot August sun.

"Hi, Dad!" he called to me, waving his arm around frantically as he struggled to move faster. Finally, once he was by my side, I gave him a small hug from the side. I knew that he had only said "Dad" as an ironic joke between us, but of course, the camp director had no knowledge as to why it was humorous.

"Did you have a good time?" I asked him honestly.

"Sure did! I'll tell you all about it in the car."

 

He did not, in fact, tell me all about it in the car.

As I drove down the long road away from Camp Sina, I lit a cigarette in my mouth and watched through the rearview mirror as Eren changed out of his camp clothing and into something more suitable for him. He decided on a pair of dark denim trousers and a black shirt with buttons running down the front of it. He looked as gorgeous as ever to me, but of course, it was impossible for him not to.

"I'm glad to have you back," I said. "I really missed you, you know." I hugged him tightly but he gave me a reluctant glare.

"Well,  _I_ didn't miss  _you,"_ he scoffed. "In fact, I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. But it's not like you  _really_ care, anyways."

"Of course I care, why wouldn't I care?" I questioned.

"Well, you haven't kissed me yet, have you?" he said.

I swerved off the road almost immediately at that, earning myself a giggle from the faunlet sitting next to me as the car rolled over a few bumps on the ground. Once the car was stopped completely on the grass, I looked over at him and tried to hide the fact that my wanting hands were sweaty. He draped his leg over mine so that he was straddling my lap and took his gum from his mouth— of  _course_ he had gum, why wouldn't he have gum?— and once he was done with that, he kissed me.

I could feel that he was somehow much more experienced now and I couldn't help but wonder exactly how "unfaithful" he'd been, but I decided against asking questions right then. I placed my hands on his back and let him kiss me, his young little tongue traveling around inside of my mouth like some expert explorer. I do not think he knew what, exactly, he was doing to me in that moment, or if he did, he was far too good at the art of teasing.

And to think this deadly little demon was only fifteen.

He soon hopped off my lap and I realized he had heard a police siren much sooner than I did. I felt sick to my stomach; was this the end already? Our story had only barely begun. As the cruiser pulled up next to our car, I was  _immensely_ relieved to find that we were not in trouble at all.

"Have you folks seen a white Sedan down around here?" the officer asked through both our rolled-down windows. "Virginia license plate?"

"Hmm, I think we saw one, didn't we?" Eren said, leaning over my lap and out the window. The officer could not see, thank God, but Eren's hand was pressing right against the already hardened place covered by my pants. I did my best to hold back a pleasured sigh and it took me a minute to realize Eren once again had his gum in his mouth. "Can't remember the license plate, though. I think it might've been Connecticut. Or... maybe Maine?" He giggled and continued discreetly moving his fingers where the policeman could not see. I was unable to speak for this reason.

"Ah, all right, thank you..." the officer said, raising an eyebrow at Eren's behavior.

"Sure thing!" he replied, then proceeded to blow a large bubble with his gum. The cruiser drove off and Eren sighed, flopping back against me. "You're one lucky mister," he said, but I already knew this.

 

Soon enough, I was pulling into the car lot of a little motel, and Eren was quick to hop out of the car with his trunk in hand. He hurried to the motel office before I could even get out of the car myself and I had to run to catch up to him, the sly child.

"Room for two," I told the motel manager, but I received only a short sigh in return.

"All our two-beds are taken," he said. "We have one single-bed room left and that's it."

"I could... sleep in a chair, I suppose," I said. "We don't have anywhere else right now. I suppose we'll take it."

I didn't realize that Eren had disappeared from my side until I retrieved the room key. "Eren?" I called, a bit anxiously.  _"Eren?"_

"Right here, Dad!" he answered, and once again, he was by my side.

"Where did you go?" I asked as we walked to room 104 together.

"Nowhere," he hummed. "I'm  _fine._ Don't give me that look."

As I unlocked the door to room 104 and flipped on the light, Eren immediately stood back. "Woah,  _wait,"_ he said. "We're really sleeping in  _one_ bed?  _Together?"_

"If you hadn't run off, you would already have heard my conversation with the motel manager," I grimaced, pinching the bridge of my nose. "I'll sleep in that chair if you'd like."

Eren still frowned as he sat down on the edge of the bed. "Whatever," he sighed.

"Now, Eren," I said, "you must know I am not the wealthiest man in the world. And because of that, most of the time we'll have to share rooms or beds like this. It's probably not  _ideal_ conditions, no, but it—"

"The word is incest," Eren said as he flopped back, laughing.

"It's not incest," I mumbled quietly to myself, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck raise.

"Maybe not blood-wise, sure," Eren said. "But once my darling mother finds out, she'll divorce you and kill me."

All I could do was laugh quietly.

 

That night, we went out to a small restaurant not too far away from the motel. Eren seemed quite distracted by something, as he kept staring across the restaurant.

"What are you looking at?" I finally asked, folding my hands together.

"Okay, don't look now,"Eren said, finally turning back to me, "but that's Erwin Smith over there."

"Erwin Smith?"

"You know, the playwright! I've mentioned him before. Anyways, I saw him back at the motel. There's where I went off to."

I turned to take a glance at this Smith fellow, but Eren slapped my cheek lightly. "I said don't look now! Then he'll know we're staring," Eren scolded.

The waiter arrived with our orders directly after that, handing Eren his lemon pie and me the crème brûlée I asked for. Eren gobbled down his pie quickly as I began speaking to him again, for which I did not blame him. I was almost sure Camp Sina had only offered food even worse than Carla's cooking had been.

"So," I said slowly, scooping a piece of my dessert up with my fork, "I've been meaning to tell you this since I picked you up, Eren. Ah... we're moving."

"Moving where?"

"Across the country, so I can take up that teaching position later in the fall. You'll be enrolled in school and we'll make a nice life together, won't we?"

"What about Mom?"

"Eren," I said quietly, "your mother is in the hospital." A devastating lie, but he believed it without worry.

"Oh. For what?"

"They said it's... something abdominal."

"Abominable?" Eren shoveled more of his lemon pie in his mouth, focusing more on his food than the (false) fact that his mother was hospitalized.

"No. Abdominal." I ate some more of my crème brûlée and downed a little bit of wine from my glass. "They aren't sure when she'll be out."

"Aw. Okay." He shrugged and finished off his pie. "Done. When can we leave?"

 

Once we left the restaurant, Eren was still staring back at Mr. Smith, so I had to pull him by his hand to get him to leave with me.

Back at the motel, I soon discovered just how defiant Eren was when it came to sleep. It took me nearly ten minutes just to convince him to go to bed, and another ten minutes to assure he'd stay asleep. Once his eyes shut a final time, the room was suddenly extremely silent.

I sneaked outside for a smoke and as I stood there under the awning, I suddenly felt I was not the only one outside. I leaned back against the exterior of the motel as I smoked my cigarette, depending on the nicotine to calm my thoughts. It was not until I heard a deep voice to my right that my mind strayed away from whatever depths my thoughts were trying to drag me into.

"Who is the lad?" the man asked. I realized that it was the blond-haired playwright from the restaurant earlier, holding a wine glass in one hand and a Cuban cigar in the other.

"He's... my son," I replied as I slowly placed the cigarette back in my mouth.

"You lie. He is not."

"Excuse me?"

"I said July was hot."

I felt rather uneasy, nervousness settling in the pit of my stomach. I tried my best to focus on my cigarette, but he continued speaking.

"Where is his mother?" he asked.

"Ahm... dead. She's dead."

"I'm terribly sorry to hear that." He took a drink from the wine glass in his hand and chuckled. "Where the devil did you really get a pretty sight like him?" he mumbled into his glass. I was horribly uncomfortable by this point, so I began to walk away from the man. He seemed to pick up on this. "Ah, I'm sorry. I am very drunk, yes? Sleep well."

I nearly bolted back into room 104, not wanting to be of this man's company any longer. As I closed the door behind me, I smiled softly at the sight of Eren fast asleep on the bed. I gathered my sleep clothes from my suitcase and slipped into the small bathroom to change quickly. I left the door open as I brushed my teeth, shooting occasional glances at the mirror to keep watch on Eren. The running water must have woken him up, as he was soon sitting up, looking at me with half-open eyes. "I'm thirsty," he croaked out in a yawn. I was quick to fill a small glass with water and shut off the bathroom light as I carried it over to him. He gulped it all down quite rapidly and I set the empty glass aside. Slowly, he began to wipe his wet lips against the sleeve of my shirt, making a quiet whine all the while. He blinked slowly and looked at me before falling back to the bed.

He looked absolutely perfect to me.

 

I did not, in fact, fall asleep in the chair, so when I woke up with the sun shining through the window, you can imagine the bliss I experienced of waking up next to my one and only Eren. I was not sure at first if he would be upset for us sleeping in the same bed, but my worries were gone once Eren opened his eyes and grinned at me. We were both lying on our sides, so his eyes met mine perfectly and I found myself once again entranced by them. They were prettier than any body of water I had ever seen, and their sparkle made them seem equivalent to gemstones. While his eyes were most likely my favorite feature, there was nothing about his perfect body that I did not wish to worship.

"Good morning," I whispered, but I soon found myself silenced by the touch of his lips on mine. He offered me three small pecks along with a bonus gift of his tongue swiping over my lips.

"I never did get the chance to tell you about my time at camp," he said. "Oh, I was such a disgusting boy, just let me tell you."

My fingers ran over Eren's back and I smirked. "I don't doubt you," I replied.

"I learned so many wonderful things while I was there," he said. "Would you like me to show you?" He sat up and began playing with the ties on my pajama pants.

"I would," I breathed out, propping my head up with my hands to get a better look at his actions.

And certainly, he did show me what he had learned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are v appreciated mhm


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hi!  
> I've been writing soo much today, I'm proud of myself<3 for those of you who don't know, my [ask box](http://doujinbag.tumblr.com/ask) is now open to oneshot requests. ^^
> 
> Two warnings. One, in this chapter Eren says something that can be technically referred to as a rape joke. Please bear in mind that I do not find such "jokes" funny at all; rape is a horrible thing and should never be joked about by anyone. Please don't hate me for what Eren says; hate Vladimir Nabokov for originally writing the line. Second warning, there's some nongraphic smut involving none other than Levi and Eren (a minor) in this chapter too. Please keep that in mind ;-;

After leaving the motel that day, we began our extensive travels across America. Eren was still convinced that his mother was in a hospital back home and I was still convinced that Eren didn’t care either way. I felt nothing but pure bliss as we sat in the car, driving wherever we pleased. However, in my mind there was a constant echo of something Eren had told me at the motel after he had showed off his newfound talents, and I simply couldn’t shake it from me.

“Eren,” I finally said, glancing over at him. “Is it true that Reiner was the… your… um… your first lover?”

Eren groaned and shook his head. “Can we move on from the topic already?” he said. “Jeez, you never let anything go.”

I was silent after that, gnawing on my lip as I kept my eyes on the road. However, a few uncomfortable noises from Eren made me look over at him again. He was somewhat pale, a frown crossing his face as he kept his arm locked tightly over his lower stomach. I knew he had to be in pain from our “experience” that morning, and it was as if I was sitting next to the ghost of someone I had just murdered.

“Can we stop at a gas station or something?” he finally asked, sighing.

“We can go anywhere you want to,” I told him.

“Well, I need a gas station. Everything hurts inside.”

I widened my eyes a bit as I stared at him, feeling a crushing weight bear down upon me. _Had I hurt Eren so bad?_

“Well, what do you expect?” Eren said, reading my thoughts. “I was a daisy-fresh boy and now look what you’ve done to me. I’m filthy now. _God,_ Levi. I should call the police and tell them you raped me, you dirty old man.”

I gasped quietly and stared at him in shock, but he immediately started laughing. I realized it was a cruel attempt at a joke and slapped him on the arm, shaking my head. He giggled until we reached the gas station, where he immediately hopped out and ran inside. I still felt awful at knowing I brought my beautiful Eren pain.

As I sat there, alone in the car for minutes on end, I could not help but feel horribly guilty of my own existence. Eren was fifteen; most fifteen year old boys were dreaming of owning their own car, or having lovely girlfriends (or even boyfriends hidden away from the more judgmental people of the world), or whatever else it may be. Here I was, taking that all away from him. No teenager in their right mind would typically desire for a thirty-five year old man for a lover. Still, I could not help but be terribly selfish. I wanted Eren to myself forever and ever, I wanted to be in love with him without a worry.

My thoughts were broken when Eren opened the car door again, seeming much better than he had been moments before. “I got some more gum,” he said, waving the small blue-and-pink package in front of my face. “Can I have a dime? I wanna call Mom at the hospital. What’s the number again?”

I held my breath. I forgot how many holes had been in my lie. “Eren, get in the car.”

“Why? I just wanna call Mom.”

“Eren, please get in the car right now,” I said. Eren frowned, his young forehead creasing into delicate yet agitated lines. “Close the door,” I ordered. He slammed it.

“Why can’t I call my own mother if I want to?” he questioned, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Because your mother is dead.” The words came out much quicker than they should have, and surely my lack of empathy for Carla was shown through my tone, but I felt bad: I should have been able to console Eren, not make him upset by showing no emotion.

His face dropped, his arms crashing into his lap. I had never seen somebody so crushed in my life. And, surely, there was no one I despised more in that moment than myself.

 

He simply could not stop sobbing at nightfall. We were in a new hotel, but he refused to lie down next to me on the bed. He simply huddled up in the corner, clutching his knees to his chest as he wept uncontrollably. I didn’t know what I could do.

He eventually came around, standing up and crawling helplessly across the mattress to me. I held my arms out to him and he wrapped himself up in them gladly, letting his tears fall freely onto my bare chest. I held him close as he cried, trying to soothe his sobs by running my fingers through his brown mess of hair. We made up very gently that night, his head resting on my chest and his hand reaching to hold mine. I was all he had left in this world, I knew. You see, he simply had nowhere else to go.

 

It was only a matter of two days before Eren was back to his normal self again. As we continued our travels, I often enjoyed hearing him sing loudly along to whatever song was currently playing, despite how off-key his voice tended to be. He threw paper streamers around the car, told made-up anecdotes about whatever passed through his mind, and tended to find pleasure in throwing things at me as I drove. All of these habits were things that made Eren _Eren_ and I couldn’t have possibly been more blissful.

We were already about five hundred miles away from our starting destination when we reached a certain motel that Eren, for one reason or another, seemed to fall in love with. He immediately flung himself onto the bed and flicked the radio on with a quick swish of his finger, smiling as he pulled his sunglasses off his face. “Nice to see you’re comfortable already,” I said before even getting a chance to set our suitcases down.

Eren looked at his sunglasses, folding and unfolding them again and again. He ran his fingers over the red-rimmed lenses, which where in the shapes of two large hearts that covered half his face when he wore them. He glanced up at me and started singing along to whatever song was playing, a smirk on his lips. _“Amour, amour, amour,”_ he sang.

I smiled gracefully at him and unzipped one of the suitcases, grabbing a change of clothes from them. “I’m going to take a shower in here,” I said, pointing to the small bathroom. “I’ll be right back.”

I was more than relieved at the feeling of the warm water on my skin once I stepped into it. I had missed taking regular showers; my typical obsessive routine of cleanliness had been slipping recently due to the fact we had to sleep in the car mostly when we could not find a place of lodging to stay at. I scrubbed all the grime from my body, but soon came to discover that no amount of scratching or rubbing could eliminate the dirt from my soul.

I heard Eren walk into the bathroom, but could not see him, as the glass door of the shower was all fogged up. I heard the toilet flush and the water turned unbearably hot, nearly burning me.

_“Agh!”_ I exclaimed. “Eren! You can’t do that!”

A hand wiped against the outside of the glass door, removing some of the fog and revealing Eren’s face to me. He seemed completely unfazed at the fact he could have easily caused my skin serious burns had the water been a single degree higher, and proceeded to press his plump lips against the glass, writing his name in the fog before leaving.

I made sure to leave my shower running especially cold after that.

 

Eren told me that he truly loved only three things in this world: his sunglasses, bubblegum, and me. The first two were really quite evident, with how he almost refused to take his glasses off now and he _never_ had a mouth empty of gum, but I was honestly shocked at the last one. _Eren loved me._

He was still quite difficult, however. On one particular day when I had an excruciating migraine that showed no sign of going away, he refused to stop smacking his gum so loudly in his teeth that I quite honestly believed I was bound to have an aneurism. “Eren, please quit being so loud with your gum,” I requested, rubbing my temples slowly with my fingers.

“’m not,” he mumbled, continuing to slosh the wad of gum around in his saliva and blowing large bubbles that burst with a loud _pop._

“Eren, come on, just spit it out, I’m not in the mood right now,” I sighed, my head only bringing me more pain. I reached over and tried to place my fingers in his mouth, but he merely bit them and made my hand retreat back. I eventually found a way to get my thumb and index finger past his lips and pulled his gum out of his mouth, tossing it out the car window without a second thought.

Eren pouted and picked his heart-shaped sunglasses up from his lap. “Fine,” he groaned. “You win. You know, you look one-hundred percent better when I can’t see you.” With that, he shoved his glasses onto his face and stared out the window, refusing to glance my way again.

I didn’t take his words to heart too much; we had little spats here and there, but in the end, everything was always well. Despite his stubborn attitude, despite the late nights we spent screaming at each other sometimes, despite all the times he hit me and I didn’t let myself hit back for fear of hurting his delicate body, we got on. In complete honesty, I was in paradise. Paradise with skies the color of hell flames, but a paradise still.

 

I was pleased to find that while sometimes, our emotional relationship was on edge, Eren never failed to remind me that he was quite satisfied with the physicality aspect. It was a swelteringly hot day when we found ourselves filled to the brim with lust inside of a rundown motel room, neither of us paying much mind to the pesky flies that buzzed around us as we rocked the small rocking chair back and forth. I didn’t know how Eren managed to keep his mind so separated from the act we were currently doing; I certainly couldn’t keep my mind off it for a second.

He sat in my lap, holding a newspaper in front of his face as he leaned forward to reach just the right angle for both of us. He was currently reading the Funnies section in the paper, shaking it whenever a pesky fly tried to land on it. Sweat dripped down my chest and poured from his forehead, but I didn’t say anything. He was wearing nothing but his white shirt, beautifully unbuttoned except for the last two buttons, and one sock left on his foot. I myself had nothing on whatsoever as my fingers ghosted over his bare thigh, pulling him closer to me by his fragile hips.

“Ha, look at this one,” he whispered, pointing to one of the jokes on the paper. I leaned forward and pressed kisses to the back of his neck as he read it out loud to me. “When’s the best time to buy a bird?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, my very own breath being hot against his soft, tan neck.

“When it’s going _cheeeeep!”_

He laughed and set the paper aside, still giggling for a short while afterwards before his laughter completely died down and instead turned into a series of loud moaning. He was completely focused on the task at hand now, and I myself was quite occupied with pleasing both of our bodies.

We nearly broke that rocking chair underneath of us as we continued moving back and forth, Eren’s moaning echoing through the room for the next two hours.

I pulled him close to my chest on the bed once we were done and made sure all the marks I had made on his body were thoroughly kissed and cared for, but I soon came to realize that his conscience was weighing on him more than my own and so, he cried himself to sleep yet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only three more chapters (planned) after this one!! I'm so excited. I hope you guys enjoyed this update<3


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this all before sixth period. Yyyayyy.
> 
> slight mentions of non-con elements (I updated the tags for this) and sorta physical abuse in a way? yeah.  
> stay safe guys, ily.

I soon came to find that there tended to be a recurring pattern that took place every time I would merge my body with Eren's in such a manner. He would always giggle, tell me how much he loved it, purr sweet little nothings in my ear, but after he came down from his little high feeling, he would simply stay quiet for a long while, fooling me into believing he was asleep until he began to cry. He was always a pretty crier, despite how much my heart sank whenever those beautiful seagreen eyes filled with tears. It ached me so to know while I was his only solace, I was simultaneously the cause of his distress. His sobbing session would wear him out eventually, and by morning he was always back to his giddy, fussy self.

Life with Eren was always like a storm in the ocean; high tides would only bring waves to crash down upon me in the end and I was standing in the middle of a deadly area I never wanted to escape from. It clawed at my legs and swirled around my head, dizzying me and nearly drowning me each time it happened. If the moon was just right in the nighttime sky, I would be able to see my forgotten, forlorn Isabel staring at me rather than the boy I was slowly, romantically killing. It made me wonder how Eren truly saw me.

 

A new storm came raining down on me after making the dreadful mistake of announcing I was going to enroll Eren in a private academy I felt would suit both him and me quite nicely— this school, of course, was none other than the one I had been planning on working at for months now.

Eren's eyes swelled and he frowned at me from his place in the passenger seat, arms crossing tightly over his chest like he always did before beginning to protest.

"Listen here,  _mister,"_ he spat at me, keeping his bubblegum stuck to his back teeth as he spoke, "if you think I'm just going to agree to go to some stupid school, you're miserably wrong."

"There are no arguments to be had," I said blandly. "I have already decided on it."

"I am  _not_ going to some stupid prep school!" He hopped over the seat and got down on the floor behind it, continuing to yell at me. I didn't let his angry words get to my heart. "You are not my father, you hear? I should tell someone all about you, all about the things you've made me do, and then they'll have to take me away from you. Is that what you want, huh?" As he continued to throw his tantrum, he began kicking the back of my seat quite violently. "I  _despise_ you, you know that? You make me sick. Sick!"

His words were soon drowned out by the sound of police sirens behind us and I pulled off to the side of the road, mentally preparing myself for every possible scenario. Eren was still shouting as the officer exited his car, but once the man was at my window, Eren softened up, wrapping his arms around me from behind and letting a sugar-sweet  _"Hello, officer"_ leave his mouth.

The officer overlooked Eren and instead glared at me as he said, "You were speeding in a thirty zone. Do you know how fast you were just going?"

"Ah, it was only thirty? I'm terribly sorry, sir. I must have missed the sign..." I retrieved my driver's license and car registration from the glovebox and handed it to him with fingers that trembled in the slightest. "I was having a conversation with my son and I must admit, I was not paying too much attention to the road signs."

The officer listened to my clear speech and sighed, handing me back my driver's license and registration. "Just make sure it doesn't happen again." He waved us off and got back in his own car, driving away quickly.

Eren huffed and sat back in the backseat, placing his feet upon my seat again, but not kicking this time around. "I almost told him everything," he said. "And I should have!" He stared out his small window as I began driving again and sighed. I swore I could hear him mumble something along the lines of  _"I hate you,"_ but I did not want to admit it to myself. Oh, we had a very long drive ahead of us indeed.

 

We eventually reached our destination after a few days of nonstop driving— for once, I was grateful for my insomniac brain— and Eren started going to Rose Academy as soon as I got his school uniform. Eren despised wearing uniforms, but I could not help myself but to fantasize about unspeakable things of him. Due to living in one set place now, I knew my number of nighttime affairs would have to be cut short. Despite the desire that burned through my veins at the lack of Eren's body heat mixing with mine, it was for the best, and I only ever wanted the best for my Eren.

The first month of school flew by quite quickly, Eren never ceasing to charm other students into befriending him and now referring to me as "Dad" more oftentimes than not. Every time that three-letter word came flying out of his mouth, something in my stomach churned and I could not shake that sickening feeling, as it was growing up inside of me like the ivy on the exterior of Eren's original home with Carla. I was entangled, surrounded my a mess of ill intentions and whispered disagreements that lasted into the night.

Eren seemed to find relief in the vicinity of the school building, where he only had to see me twice in the English department hall as compared to all the time back at home. What happened to the Eren who had loved me weeks and weeks before?

What had I done wrong?

 

The beginning of October brought me an Eren with an undeniable glow in his cheeks as he raced up to me one day, a white paper in his hand.

"What's this?" I asked.

"The- the play!" he exclaimed happily. "You know, the play the drama department is having? I want to be in it!" He held the paper up to my face and hopped around excitedly. "See? Auditions are next Tuesday!"

I sighed and pushed the paper away from my face lightly. "We can discuss it at home."

"Please just tell me I can be in it."

"At home, Eren."

_"Please."_

"We're discussing it at home and I'm not saying it again," I said as the last of my seventh-period students filed into my classroom. "Get on to class, Eren." I closed the door in his face and gave myself a moment to clear my mind before proceeding to teach my last class of the day.

Eren would not leave the topic alone the whole drive back home from the school. He repeated his question countless times in those seven minutes and forty-two seconds. I shut him up with a quick snap of, _"Shut up about that damned play already,"_ and he did not open his mouth again until after dinner, when I was settled into my chair and currently reading the newspaper.

 _"Levi,"_ he purred, and my ears perked up at the word, realizing this was the first time in far too long that he had called me by my name and not "Dad". Still, I did not respond, knowing exactly what he was getting at. He moved onto his knees on the floor and crawled over to me slowly. "Levi," he whined again. "We're home. Can we  _please_ discuss that play now?"

"There's nothing to discuss," I said, folding up my newspaper and staring down at him. "I've decided you're not going to audition."

"But _why?"_ he asked.

"You know very well that your boundaries as far as travel go are directly to school and back with me. If I let you in that play... who knows where you'll be after school?"

"Levi, please. You can take me home right after each practice, if I even get through the auditions." Eren's eyes were begging me, pleading, on the very edge of welling up with tears if I denied him again. "I'll do anything. Remember my dream of being an actor? I believe this would help me _so_ much." Before I could utter another harsh "no," his hand was on my knee, fingers tapping against the lightweight fabric of my trousers slowly. I felt something stir in me and I gripped onto the arms of the chair, watching Eren with heavy-lidded eyes. "I think it'd be a great opportunity for me," he persuaded. His hand slid up the inside of my thigh and I sighed. "Don't you think?" **  
**

_"Eren,"_ I choked out, my voice caught in between a strangled moan and a plea. "I'm serious..."

"Me too," Eren stated. "I'm being  _very_ serious here." His hand reached the growing tent at the top of my pants and he gave a light squeeze, forcing a cry from my mouth. "I  _really_ think I should be in the play... shouldn't I?" He placed a kiss on the inside of my thigh and my fingernails scraped the burlap of the chair.

 _"God,_ yes," I said, nodding frantically. "You can be in the play, you can be in the play."

Eren smiled and kissed my thigh again, making my spine convulse and getting my body to tremble at my hips. He had to help me with my belt.

 

Eren was a beautiful incubus in black as he stood on the stage, other boys crowded around him as the play director hopped around and ordered Eren to do this and that and  _do it again_ and  _more feeling, put in more feeling!_ I smiled and watched from the very back of the seemingly otherwise empty theatre, my hands clasped together in my lap.

I could smell a familiar scent of strong tobacco coming from the left of me, and so I turned my head to the side, my eyes landing upon a man half-hidden by the shadows as he stood in the doorway. I could not see his face, but there was a fat Cuban cigar smoking in his hand and something about his presence filled me with terrible discomfort.

After practice was over, Eren bound down the stage stairs and I fled to the car lot outside the school so it would seem I had been waiting on him outside and most certainly not watching every graceful move he made on the stage. When I saw his smiling face exit the school doors, I felt a great warmth spread through my chest. He was laughing and chatting with a short blond boy, scripts in both their hands. I was not sure how to feel at the fact that Eren's face only ever brightened so much when he was with people who were not me, but at least I did get to see him smile. He waved at me and hugged his friend before darting over to me, hopping into the car with a squeal.

"It went great!" he said proudly. "I felt amazing. You should have seen it."

"Mm, I'm positive it was truly fantastic," I said, smirking to myself.

"The real playwright was there, too," he said, humming as he chattered on. "Erwin Smith! He was there at the motel a few months ago..."

That name sparked a short memory and I could smell the cigars as if they were inside my car. I didn't even hear the rest of what Eren was saying. I held my breath and drove us back home without another word to him.

 

Aside from the play that Eren was now essentially obsessed with, there was more drama that seemed to be endlessly increasing in our household. I came to find I could not hold back from my desires anymore, meaning I had to find new techniques to have my way with Eren. Half of the time, strong sedatives I could slip into his water before bed became my favorite tools. In the times where he fought tooth and nail to stay awake, however, I soon found myself emptying my wallet time and time again just to pay him off. I did not know where he was hiding the money, nor what he was planning on using it for, which instilled an unspoken fear inside of me, but I tried not to dwell and left the haunting thoughts alone for a short while.

I was honestly quite relieved at how well the payments were keeping Eren's mouth shut. He no longer even cried after I had my paid fun; he simply disappeared back to his room and rehearsed his lines from the play until the sun rose.

To keep Eren occupied on Fridays after school (being the teacher assigned to supervise students on extra Friday lessons was quite a stressing task, but I had no other choice), I signed him up for piano lessons that he could walk to from school and then walk home from, as I trusted him strongly now.

Piano lessons seemed to be going quite smoothly from the way Eren talked about them, but then I received a phone call one day informing me that Eren had missed not one but  _two_ lessons in a row. I walked into Eren's room where he was currently reading his lines to himself under his breath, effectively hiding my burning anger with a calm expression.

"How are piano lessons going?" I questioned, leaning my back against the doorframe.

Eren looked up at me and smiled. "Good. Great. Super. Fantastic. Terrific. Really awesome." (And a hundred other synonyms that my poor memory can not help me to recall any longer.)

"Really? It sure does sound like it," I nodded slowly with a frown painting my face, "especially considering you've apparently been skipping the past couple of lessons."

Eren stared at me at set his script aside, pupils dilating as he let my words sink in. "How did you..." He trailed off, not bothering to complete his thought at all.

"Where have you been, then? Surely you haven't been walking just from the school to here, I know you better than that." I glared at him, my eyes burning holes right through him.

"At... the park," he said, his words coming out slowly. "With Armin. We've been practicing our lines for the—"

"You expect me to believe that?" I said. "Tell me the truth, Eren."

"You want to call Armin and see for yourself?" he scoffed.

"Give me his telephone number, then."

He responded with Armin's number and I walked into the living room to call the boy. An older gentleman's voice answered and I immediately asked, "Is Armin available?" Once Armin was on the line, I said, "Armin, hello. I'm Levi, Eren's father, and I have a question to ask you."

_"Oh, h-hello, Mr. Ackerman. Is something wrong?"_

"Is it true you and Eren have been at the park these past few Fridays?"

_"These past... few... Fridays?"_

"One of them, Armin, was yesterday."

 _"Ah... yeah. Yeah, we have been. Practicing the play, you see..."_ A quiet pause.  _"I'm sorry, sir. I know Eren has Friday piano lessons, but he told me you'd be fine with it..."_

"Right, right." I watched as Eren entered the room slowly. "Thank you, Armin. Goodbye." I hung up and waited for Eren to take his place at the table, grimacing when he propped his legs up on it.

"Did he confirm?" he asked, a cocky grin almost showing on his face.

"It sounded as if he'd been directed by you to do so, but yes, he did."

"Hm." Eren leaned back in his chair, light twinkling in his eyes for all the wrong reasons.

"So," I said, "what are you planning to do with that money you're saving?"

"What money?"

My eyes burned and I slammed my hand upon the table, startling Eren in a great manner. "You know very well what money I'm talking about!" I yelled. "So where is it? Where?"

"That's none of your business!" he shouted back, rising to his feet.

"It's very much my business, so what the  _hell_ are you doing? Planning on running away? If that's the case, you can give it all back to me!"

"I earned that money!" he screamed, tears in his eyes.

"You are so ungrateful, so  _ungrateful."_

"Ungrateful of what? A man who rapes me? A man who didn't tell me my own mother is dead until it was convenient for him? How do I know you're not planning on killing me too?"

"Now, Eren—"

"So go on then! Do it!" He hit my arm violently and all I could do was stand there. "Murder me, why don't you? Go on, murder me! Murder me! I dare you!"

"Eren, shut your mouth!"

"Murder me like you murdered my mother! Do it! Murder me like you murdered my mother! I'm telling you to  _murder me!"_

"Be silent!" I bellowed. Before I could stop myself, my hand had struck his face, a loud cracking sound echoing through the entire room. Eren held his hand to his cheek and looked at me with shocked eyes, a gasp stuck on his lips. "I'm sorry," I choked out immediately. "I'm sorry."

"Don't touch me!" he said. He shrieked and raced out of the house, and I was unable to catch up to him due to still being in disbelief that my own hand had slapped him.  _I had hurt him more than ever before._

"Eren, Eren, Eren, wait," I said, although he was already gone. I brought myself to run outside after him, where I saw that the bicycle I'd purchased for him the month before was gone. I darted down the street and looked all around myself, taking in as much of my surroundings as I could.

At last, _at last,_ after nearly two hours of searching and weeping and fearing I'd never see him again, I spotted his face in the window of an ice cream shop, his expression looking rather torn. I walked inside, a bell above the door announcing my arrival. Eren's head raised and his eyes widened as he stared at me, before suddenly breaking into... a smile?

"Hi," he greeted quietly, as if the events that just took place had been wiped clean from his memory. "I've come to a decision."

"A decision?" I repeated. "On what?"

"Our situation. Come on, let's talk." I sat next to him at the main counter and he grinned, fluffing his hair up with his fingers. "Buy me an ice cream first, though."

I obliged and bought him the dessert of his choice— a large hot fudge sundae with two red cherries on top— and simply waited as patiently as I could for him to hurry and get along with whatever his "decision" was. "So?" I finally said, tapping my fingers on the table.

"What's the rush?" he asked. "We have time, do we not?" He lifted a spoonful of ice cream to his mouth, making it evident he wasn't going to talk until he finished eating. I was desperately wishing I had bought a smaller ice cream for him.

He finished and placed one of the cherry stems in his mouth, beginning to tie it into a knot. I wanted to enjoy the minuscule show, to find pleasure in the way his mouth was moving, but alas, I could not. My quickly burning heart was falling away to ashes the longer he waited to speak. He pulled the knotted stem out of his mouth and put it back in the bowl, shoving it away and finally, _finally,_ opening his mouth to talk. "I love you," he whispered, taking me by surprise. "Let's talk outside." I was tired of his stalling and fooling around, but followed him out anyways, not expecting him to suddenly hold my hand. "Did you hear me? Levi, I love you. I forgive you. I understand why you got upset with me. I haven't been treating you very fairly." I was silent and stayed that way. "So now, I want some things. I have needs I'd like to have met."

"What is it you want? Anything, name anything and it's yours."

"After the final production of the play," he said, "I'd like to leave. That means the night of March fifteenth, we have to go."

"Go where?"

"Anywhere but this old place. I have a list in my room." Eren smiled, a car passing us on the road and getting his eyes to gleam as the headlights reflected off those teal gemstones. "I want to be in control of where we go and what happens to my own body. Levi, I love you, but _please,_ I know what you do to me while I'm asleep. And while I won't hate you for it, please know it's disgustingly wrong." He spoke so calmly that it almost felt like I was the child in the scenario. "All you have to do is ask and I'm yours."

And oh, he truly was mine, mine, mine.

 

I sent him up to bed when we got home again, but he marched upstairs to the bathroom instead and I merely sighed. My fingers, calloused and dirty not from grime but from all the sins I had committed with them, trembled as I waited for him to come back downstairs. I nearly fell asleep waiting for him, but then he called my name gently and I reopened my eyes to see him standing on the top step, wearing nothing but his soft underwear and his white shirt, left unbuttoned and hanging off his shoulder. "Take me to bed," he requested.

I walked up the stairs to reach him and his arms draped around my neck, holding onto me as I picked his legs up and carried him back downstairs.

As we made up in my bed that night, he stayed with me, and the faint sounds of his breathing along with the moans that made my knees go weak all seemed to wash away our sins from earlier that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yyyyyeah  
> also apparently "insomniac" can be used as a noun and adjective; i wasn't sure if "insomniatic" was a word and apparently it isn't! the more you know. (in referral to the third set of paragraphs)


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI GUYS SO I'M SO HAPPY I HAVE LIKE MAYBE ONE CHAPTER LEFT AFTER THIS IM SO PROUD???? YAY!!!!!!!1  
> anyways
> 
> i may or may not have overdone the foreshadowing/plot reflection in this but oH WELL its """artsy"""  
> i wrote the lines to the play myself so yeah there's that
> 
> [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0zsJBX42Mw) is the song that eren sings in the car
> 
> and last but not least i added a [new song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMeaDstroig) to the [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBWeE7-XN7EX2f4L4GtBsDiE8gSzB-hg6) (its totally not because i'm madly in love with alex turner's voice what)
> 
> (so many links yes yes yes) so without further ado heRE IS CHAPTER 7!!!! (im rlly happy can u tell)

The months leading to the final production of the play seemed longer than anything I’d ever had to endure. In the winter, Eren suffered through his first holiday season as a technical orphan and I tried to make it up to him with grand gifts and solemn nighttime whispers. Surprisingly enough, he refrained from lashing out at me, and I felt almost completely at peace.

We were both home for the two weeks of Christmas break, keeping ourselves safe from the howling snowstorm outside with blankets draped around our shoulders as we sat by the fireplace. We both stayed rather quiet, Eren taking the occasional sip of the tea I’d made him, but otherwise, we had only the crack of the fire to fill the silence between us.

“Your birthday is on Christmas, right?” he finally asked, moving to set his tea aside. “That’s only two days from now.”

“Indeed, it is,” I nodded. “I prefer not to celebrate it.”

“Can I give you a present anyway?”

“You may.”

Eren took upon himself the task of pleasuring me for free as my gift. Since our agreement had been made, I was always quite cautious with the delicate subject of sexual acts, depending on the knowledge that Eren would initiate it sooner or later in order to keep myself sane.

I inhaled the sweet smell of hickory wood burning on the hearth as Eren hovered over me, skillfully using his well-trained lips to cover the entirety of my body with heated marks that, sadly, would still fade come morning. Nevertheless, I let him do as he pleased, as it was obviously his planned gift for me and not something I felt the need to take any control over.

With his hands pressed to my chest and his legs on either side of my hips, I held onto his waist and helped lead him through everything that he tried so desperately to do himself. As the room filled up with loud cries and pleasured moans, I glanced up at the snow drifting outside the frosted window, praying that my delicate snowflake of a lover would not melt as quickly as the ones outside.

 

Three more months passed and the play came around at last, falling exactly fifteen days before Eren’s sixteenth birthday. I did my best to forget he was becoming less and less of a child with every passing second. You see, it had never been any intention of mine to fall in love with his youth– _Monsieur Levi Ackerman_ had no means of preying upon an innocent child in earlier years, no– but as I watched him grow up before my eyes, he looked less like a faunlet and more like a real young man.

It made me feel ill.

At the play, my faunlet seemed suspended in time as his character successfully reflected his true youthful glow upon the audience. I was seated in the front row of the school theatre, so close to my singing, prancing Eren that I could smell the rosewater he had doused himself with before the show. My heart beat faster and faster every time he spun around, his arms gracefully floating in the air that surrounded him.

“A witch, a witch, you must be a witch!” one of the other characters, a boy with freckles so defined that they must have been painted on, went about shouting.

“Nonsense,” Eren said, raising his hands. “I am no such thing!”

“He has the dark magic within him, I saw it with my own eyes!” Eren’s friend Armin recited. “He is but a blasphemer, you hear!”

“My husband is innocent, I tell you. Innocent!” As Rose Academy was an all-boys preparatory school, there were no females in the cast of the play, meaning one boy had to dress in a wig and gown. His voice was quite effeminate, making for a very convincing young woman. Eren walked over to this actor and draped his arms around him, making my heart stop beating if only for a moment.

“Oh, thank you, my dear Anna-Lee,” he said dramatically. “Come, let us run away from this pitiful town and stay far from the people who try to separate us.”

“Even your own mother, Edgar?”

“Aye. For she, too, believes I am nothing but a sinful work of the devil himself; she shall shed no tears once I am gone.” Eren turned to look at the crowd, but his darling green eyes locked with mine and I could feel my palms tremble. “Anna-Lee, I am yours and you are mine, and no other simple person could ever matter more to me. Oh, how I love you so.”

As the play came to an eventual close, all the young actors took a bow and I could not applaud them loud enough. I caught a glimpse of a tall blond man behind the red velvet curtain and I knew by now that he was the playwright that Eren had seemed almost infatuated with for so long. I contained my envy and soon enough, Eren was running straight off the stage and into my arms, squealing excitedly.

“You were beautiful up there,” I whispered to him. “Absolutely stunning.”

“Can we leave now?” he asked, looking at me as a flurry of busy people swirled around us.

“I already have the car ready,” I told him. “Let’s go.”

With our suitcases in the backseat, Eren stared out at the rain through the windows of the car and sighed. “Another motel tonight, I’m guessing?” he asked. I nodded in response, removing one hand from the steering wheel to steadily pat his arm.

“I don’t like rain,” he pouted.

“Nor do I.” Isabel died on the rainiest day that France had ever experienced during my time there. Needless to say, the weather was somewhat scarring.

“I hope it’s sunny on my birthday,” he said. “Are we doing something special for my birthday, Levi?”

“Of course,” I agreed. “It’d be a pity if we wasted such a precious day, would it not?”

He didn’t respond to that. He simply went about drawing shapes on the foggy window glass and closed his eyes to the heavy beating of rain down upon our car.

 

By the time his birthday rolled around, we were already getting closer and closer to the west coast. Eren had always wanted to see the shores of California, and that’s exactly what I gifted him with. He kept his list titled “Places To Visit” in his pocket at all times and each time we reached one of the places, he scratched it off with a small wooden pencil that he kept in the glovebox.

Standing on the opposite side of the country from whence we came, he curled his toes in the soft white sand and he breathed in the salty air, the waves crashing at his ankles again and again. I watched him from a distance until I could control myself no longer and walked up behind him, placing a chaste kiss on the nape of his neck as my arms held him close to my chest.

“Is it everything you thought it would be?” I whispered in his ear.

“It’s gorgeous,” he replied. “I love it.” He smiled warmly and turned so that our noses were nearly touching. “I… love _you,_ Levi.” He held his arms around my neck and kissed me with passion, my own hands steadily holding him in place so he wouldn’t fall to the ground. I didn’t even need to tell him I loved him as well; he already knew.

“Happy birthday,” I said to him. Then, to myself, I made the simplistic wish that he would never age another day.

 

A few days later, we began driving north to see the mountains of Washington. However, just as we reached Oregon, I could not shake the feeling that something seemed very wrong.

I took a look in the rearview mirror and saw a black car not much larger than our own staying rather close on our tail. “Eren,” I said, “could you take out a notepad and pencil from the glovebox?” He did as I asked and looked at me expectantly, tapping the pencil against the paper quickly. “Okay, now write this down: California–”

“Can I just put Cali? Like, C-A-L-I?”

“I- sure, it doesn’t matter.” I groaned and constantly flicked my eyes from the road to the mirror. “Now, below that, write _6C1042._ Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good. Now put it back in the glovebox for me.”

Incidents such as this continued to happen time and time again. No matter where we were coming from or where we were going, I knew someone was following us; a detective, perhaps. He was quite the clever one, our pursuer. At times, he would switch cars, but I always knew it was him; I could feel it deep within me. I just didn’t know what he wanted from us. It’s an unsettling feeling, being stalked by an unknown man with an unknown motive.

We were at a gas station in Montana when I came close to seeing the face of our follower. Eren insisted on staying in the car as I went inside to buy him some more bubblegum (his stash was running dreadfully low, what a tragedy) but as I looked out the window, I saw Eren standing outside of the car, talking to a man dressed in a dark suit. The fedora on his head hid his face from my view and no amount of frustrated shifting could allow me to see him from a better angle. I quickly purchased the gum and left, running out to Eren as fast as I could. By the time I reached him, the other man was already speeding away, a cloud of dust building up behind his car.

“What did that man say to you?” I questioned hastily, getting Eren back into the car with me.

“What man?”

 _“That_ man, he just drove away. In the suit.”

“Oh. He just wanted to ask directions.” Eren played with his car door and grabbed his gum from my hand.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“Mhm.” He shoved a piece of gum in his mouth and continued swinging his door back and forth.

“Can I see that notepad in the glovebox?”

“Why?”

“That was a rhetorical question, Eren. Just give it to me.”

Eren sighed and pulled the pad of paper out, handing it to me with great reluctance. However, upon seeing it, I realized half of the information had been tampered with, changed. The other half was scratched out completely.

“What is this?” I exclaimed. Eren refused to look at me, his jaw moving slowly as his gum-chewing came to a halt. “Eren, look at me. Look at me!”

 _“What?”_ Eren hissed, venom in his tone. It seemed that I no longer had control over my own hand, as for the second time in my life, it raised itself into the air and struck Eren across the face. I stared wide-eyed at him, then looked at my hand, my palm stinging from the force of the blow. He made eye contact with me for no more than a second before he was running out of the car, his legs moving faster than I could keep up with.

“Eren!” I called after him, sprinting in his direction. I tried to wrap my arms around him, only for his arm to swing back and hit me in the torso. I grimaced and drew myself back from him a bit, but soon got him in my arms again, trying my best to get him to calm down.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I whispered in his ear as he slowly stopped struggling so much. He burst into tears and pressed his face to my shirt as he wept, and all I could do now was hold him silently.

 

He forgave me much quicker than I was used to and soon, we were back on our route to see the geysers in Wyoming. I was driving quite peacefully, my eyes locked with the road before me and Eren’s feet in my lap. He seemed to be entertaining himself almost more than me as he moved his heels back and forth across the front of my trousers, reminding me of the time he had first done such a thing back at his mother’s house. That was long before I had made him mine, but looking back, I see it’s evident that essentially, he already was.

“Turn up the volume on the radio!” he said, and I did exactly as he demanded. As the music played louder through that tiny car stereo, Eren began to sing along, and I couldn’t help but hum along in harmony under my breath.

 _“There’s a tree in the meadow, with a stream drifting by… And carved upon that tree, I see ‘I love you ‘til I die’…”_ Eren smiled and stuck his tongue out at me before continuing. _“I will always remember the love in your eye… The day you carved upon that tree ‘I love you ‘til I die’…”_

I gave his feet a small pat and they wiggled around more on my lap. He was always quite sensitive on the bottoms of his feet; he was quite sensitive everywhere, really.

 _“But further down on lovers’ lane, a silhouette I see…”_ I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the shadow of a man in a car ghosting behind us. _“…I know you’re kissing someone else, I wish that it were me…”_ Oh, my faunlet, I could never dream of touching any body that does not belong to you. _“…By that tree in the meadow, my thoughts always lie…”_ Eren, I love you, never remove your feet from my lap nor your presence from this car. _“…And wherever you go, you’ll always know… I love you ‘til I die.”_

I promised myself then and there to love him until I died. This reigns true to this day, it does, it does.

I soon took another glance in the mirror and saw that thankfully, we had lost the car, but I could not shake the ominous feeling of being haunted by a man I still could not place my finger on.

 

After seeing the geysers in Wyoming and the Mount Rushmore monument in South Dakota, we made ourselves a temporary home in a small hotel suite in the southernmost part of Minnesota. By now, my never-changing rules were engraved into Eren’s mind with every stop we made. Don’t talk to strangers, never leave without asking me first, no illegal activities _(he always laughed rather bitterly at that one),_ and so on. The particular hotel in which we stood provided a rather large glass window with a pleasant view of the surrounding scenery outside. Eren seemed happy there, and that was all I could ask for.

It was early on a Saturday morning when I informed Eren I’d be going out to run a few errands. He seemed unconcerned by it, merely notifying me he’d like to have some fruit, preferably cherries and bananas. I memorized his order as I set out to my car, being sure to lock the door behind myself.

After paying a visit to the barber, filling the car up with gasoline again, and buying Eren’s fruit from the little market down the way, I returned to our suite and found it to be quite late in the afternoon already. I hoped Eren wasn’t feeling too terribly hungry. However, I soon found that that was the least of my worries when it seemed the door to the suite was unlocked. I had locked it before I left, had I not?

Walking into the room, I set down the bags of fruit and traveled further inside until my eyes landed upon a very messy looking Eren, wearing only his unbuttoned white shirt. His hair was astray, sitting atop his head looking quite like a bird’s nest.

“Eren,” I said warily, “have you been out?”

“What do you mean?”

 _“Out,_ Eren. As in, have you left this room in the time I was gone?” I stepped closer to him, my eyes never drifting away from his.

“I… I mean, only for a little bit. But you were gone so long, I was only making sure you were coming back. Really, that’s all!” Eren’s tone was too light for his words to be so insistent; he had to be lying, I knew this for a fact.

“Tell me the truth, Eren,” I said. “And don’t try to hide it. I _know_ when you’re lying.”

Eren kept his mouth clamped shut, his gaze averting my own as he looked _anywhere_ but at me. “Please tell me,” I repeated. “Please.” I took him by the shoulders and pressed my forehead against his, gulping a bit. “Please, please, tell me–” I lost my footing on the ground beneath my feet and ended up falling on top of Eren, getting him to lie completely underneath me as I continued my frantic questioning. Oh, how his silence tore me apart! My Eren, my darling, if you had only provided me with a simple answer, I would not have been driven so incredibly mad.

“Please, please, tell me, please tell me,” I whispered again and again, my knee now pressing down into the mattress right between his legs. I pushed his unbrushed hair out of his eyes and rested my hands on either side of his face as I cried tearlessly. He rutted down against my knee and moaned, now using pleasure as yet another way to avoid answering me directly. Every time I cried out a quiet “please,”he would answer with a _“god,”_ and when I repeated “tell me,” he could only form his lips into a small O and continue moving down against my knee.

I gave up on trying to beg him for an answer as his lips found mine, and the things we did that night very well should have been considered blackmail against me. But _oh,_ I was falling deeper and deeper with every graze of his fingertips against my skin, and I could only follow _his_ rules now.


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end. The final chapter.  
> I want to thank everyone so so so very much for reading, I wouldn't have finished this without any of you. I really love you all.  
> I'm not sure what else to say. I suppose I'll just leave you to your reading.

Tensions between Eren and I only seemed to rise more and more as time passed. Our journeys in the western United States had come to a close, and as we now headed further east, Eren became more hostile with me. We no longer screamed at each other and I never laid a dreadful finger on him again, but perhaps the empty silence that possessed the air between us was worse than all those other malicious things combined. Eren rarely spoke to me, and when he did, his words were merely quiet repeats of, “You know I love you, right? I love you, Levi.”

Something inside of me made it hard to believe him. Whether it was the overly forced smile he put on when he said such things or the dim light leaving his eyes over time, or possibly a combination of both, I was never quite sure; I simply knew I couldn’t trust it.

We were making a stop at a roadside motel in Illinois (due to see Chicago’s Navy Pier on _exactly_ the twenty-third of May, according to Eren’s precise wishes) when an event took place that changed absolutely everything. I was standing in front of the vacant motel room, talking with the head of management, when she suddenly interrupted me and pointed in front of us. “Is your son all right?” she asked, quite obviously concerned.

“What do you mean? Of course, he’s–” I stopped myself as I suddenly got a better look at him than I had all night. He sat on the sidewalk, clutching his stomach with a clear expression of pain written on his face, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t remind me of Isabel in her final days. “Eren,” I whispered in shock. “What happened?”

“I feel sick,” he whimpered, his face going paler by the second. It took me less than a minute to rush back into the car and drive Eren to the nearest hospital, praying and begging God to keep him safe all the while.

I’ve never been a particularly religious man (I declared God to be dead after Isabel’s passing), but if that’s what it took to assure Eren’s safety and wellbeing, I’d do anything.

The hospital is now merely a faint distorted memory in the back of my mind as I write this. I don’t remember the doctor’s name or what the receptionist at the desk looked like, nor do I remember the color of the chair I sat restlessly in or how long, exactly, it took for a doctor to get back with me about Eren’s condition. I do, however, remember the feeling of relief that washed over me when I was notified that Eren’s diagnosis was nothing more than the simple flu. Completely curable, the doctor said to me. Eren just ended to stay overnight to assure he’d be stable.

Slowly, after letting this news filter through my brain, I rose from my chair and walked into the room they were keeping Eren in. He was facing the door when I entered, but upon seeing my face, he turned the opposite way and stared at the wall.

“How are you feeling?” I asked nervously.

“I’m fine, apparently,” he grumbled. “I’m tired. I want to go to sleep.”

I stroked his back with a gentle hand, but he pulled away from my touch, shivering a bit. “I suppose I’ll let you sleep, then,” I said quietly. I flicked off the lamp by his bed with a swift motion of my finger and kept myself from the temptation of kissing his cheek before exiting the room rather grimly.

“Mr. Ackerman,” the doctor called. I looked up and raised my eyebrow as he approached me. “Eren’s safe here. You can go on and get some rest; call in the morning when you’re ready to retrieve him.”

I hesitated for quite a long time before nodding in agreement. “Of course,” I said. “I can call in the morning, yes… Right. Yes, of course, indeed. I suppose I’ll be… going now, then.”

I spent that night in the motel alone, and while it was my first time in _months_ sleeping without Eren by my side, I soon came to find it was most certainly not my last.

I woke up in the morning to yet another gloomy day. While the sun tried its best to reveal itself, the clouds hovering in front of it made that seem nearly impossible for the poor burning star. May had never been such a cold month until now, I suddenly noticed.

I used the telephone outside of the motel to reach the hospital, whose phone number had been clearly written on a small white slip of paper that I had not removed from my pocket all night. Once the receptionist answered, I held my breath, gripping the phone tightly in my hand until the pads of my fingertips went numb.

_“How can I help you?”_

“Hello, I’m Levi Ackerman, and I was wondering if it was all right to come and get my son yet?”

_“What’s your son’s name, sir?”_

“Eren Jaeger. J-A-E-G-E-R.”

 _“Let me check with Dr. Kefka.”_ (I cannot remember if this was truly the doctor’s name, dear readers, so please forgive my slowly failing memory, but his name is simply not important.) I waited for a few minutes before the woman’s voice finally returned to my ear. _“Sir, Eren Jaeger has already left.”_

“Excuse me?” I said, feeling the entire world around me stop in place.

_“He left with his uncle about a half hour ago. I have the sign-out forms right in front of me.”_

“There has to be some mistake,” I insisted, then proceeded to hang up. I didn’t bother changing my clothes, despite the fact I had worn them the day before and even slept in them. If the hospital staff chose to perceive me as a head case, then so be it, I told myself.

After speeding to the hospital and nearly running over at least two stop signs on the way, I just barely put the car in park as I ran into the building and started racing down the corridors. I reached Eren’s room and burst into it, angry nurses yelling at me all the while, but I could not be bothered with them. Eren was not in his bed. There was no sign of his existence _anywhere._

“Where is he?” I bellowed, my vision going rather blurry as rage filled my entire body.

“Sir, he’s already left, I–”

“That’s impossible!” I protested. “Where did he go?” My eyes landed on his doctor and I tackled the man to the ground, a few nurses shrieking. “Tell me where he is!” I shouted in his face. “Tell me! Where is he?”

A few other doctors attempted to pull me off of him, but it was no use. I could see only dark flashes of red as I continued demanding answers. I couldn’t have lost Eren, I simply _couldn’t_ have.

I heard the sound of police sirens echoing outside and I suddenly stopped moving and screaming so manically. “I’m sorry,” I said suddenly, giving in and allowing the other doctors to take me off of the doctor I was currently attacking. “I am so terribly sorry. I must have had a little too much to drink this morning. I’m sorry. I’m sure my son is fine, yes. I’m sure of it…”

I exited the building much slower than I’d come in and waited in my car for the longest time, trying to clear my mind and get some sort of grasp on reality. Eren was gone and I did not know who he had left with. He was gone.

And just like that, my life became nothing.

 

I tried to my best to follow Eren’s trail. Whoever his captor was, he used different aliases with each place he stopped at. I knew it was him; from looking at the guestbooks, I was always able to find his false signature. He had a very distinct way of curling his G’s and dotting his I’s. However, each time I found their trace, it seemed I was simply one day too late.

For a long time, the trail was warm. With every time that I just barely missed them, it felt like a tiny flame was put out inside of me. After an entire year of searching, it went completely cold, and I could no longer hold onto even the smallest sliver of hope that I could find Eren again.

At last, I returned to Rose Academy, went back to teaching, and avoided all questions of what had happened to Eren. I could not reply to a question that I, myself, did not even know the answer to.

 

I was in the midst of some spring cleaning– two years, now, had passed since I had my last glimpse of Eren– when I came across small remnants of him scattered around my car. He was there, in the backseat, the glovebox, squeezed underneath the passenger seat. I found old bubblegum wrappers, lollipop stick, torn-out panels from comics which he had, apparently, found quite entertaining at the time. I sat in his old seat for quite some time, holding all the memorabilia of my long lost faunlet’s existence close to my chest.

“Eren…” I whispered, holding in my fist his “Places To Visit” paper. I saw that the Navy Pier and all listed locations after that ha been left unchecked and I had to choke back a stuttered breath. I had never been able to reach these destinations with him, and now, I never would.

I flipped the paper over in my hand, expecting to see the list continue, but instead, what I read shocked me more than a bolt of lightning could. It seemed to be a little poem, all scrawled out in his messy sixteen-year-old handwriting.

_take away my flowers_  
_and clip off all the stems_  
_go and try to blame it_  
_on already losing them_

_my petals are left behind me_  
_a trail of daisy-fresh death_  
_and you still have the wheel in your hands_  
_I don't know where I'm being kept_

_I am not a reincarnate_  
_of any dead old girl._  
_I am simply a teenage boy_  
_trapped inside your world._

_tell them you're my father_  
_and I'm your little son_  
_but there's something raging inside you_  
_like a storm that's just begun_

_lock up the car doors_  
_and shut me inside_  
_I'll fight in the hotel room_  
_until you let me go hide_

_because my name is Eren_  
_I've never been anything more_  
_so please let me go free_  
_and just unlock the doors._

I stared at the words in horror, playing them over again and again in my mind until I couldn’t take it anymore. This is how Eren had really felt about me all along. I couldn’t accept this. These were not the words I had ever wanted to hear.

I pulled my cigarette lighter from my pocket and set the paper ablaze.

 

For those of you who do not know, there are two ways to remember people. You can recall them with your eyes open, in details such as _soft voice, small toes, rough hair_ (as this is how I see Isabel in my mind), or you can relive their presence with your eyes closed, a blizzard of colors burning into your eyelids for as long as time lasts (and this, dear readers, is how I hold onto memories of Eren: in vivid flashes of _green eyes_ and _pink candy_ and _white shirts_ ).

The latter is enough to drive someone mad, really.

 

I was nearly at the end of my life, only one sleeping pill away from eternal darkness, when I received a rather strange letter in the mail. It had no sender’s address on the envelope, only my own in the center underneath a very finely written _Mr. Levi Ackerman._ My nimble fingers scrambled to open it and upon realizing who it was from, I very nearly shouted from the rooftop. The handwriting had improved greatly in the past two and a half years, but the same signature I had memorized so well stuck out at me from the bottom of the page and truly, I knew I was not mistaken.

_Dearest Levi,_  
_I hope this letter does not come to you as a bother– that is, if it reaches you at all. You see, I am eighteen now, and a terrible amount of things have happened in the time since we last saw each other._  
_Right now, I am married, to a lovely girl by the name of Annie. Now, we are due to have a baby this winter, and you see, we don’t have the funds sufficient to begin raising a child. Anything would help, honestly. Even the smallest amount of money would be of great importance to both of us._  
_I hope you don’t hate me. I’d love to see you again. I really would._  
_Yours truly,_  
_Eren Jaeger_

After scurrying to write down the address on the envelope, I did not hesitate to pack up a suitcase and gather together some money into a large envelope. I boarded into my old car, which I hadn’t used in a few months, and began driving the two days– nonstop, might I add– to reach my destination. To reach _Eren._

Kansas was filled with nothing but flat land and farms, but at the same time, it looked rather cozy. A great place to raise a giant family, to stay settled down for quite a long time. Surely that had to be Eren’s intention with moving out here.

Eren’s road was a rather long one, filled with twists and turns that I had trouble navigating through, but by the time I reached Eren’s house, I knew it was worth it. The house stood without a foundation beneath it and was pitifully tiny, looking not much better than a shack belonging to a family in a poverty-stricken country. Leaving my suitcase behind in the car, I slowly approached the door with the money-containing envelope tucked away safely inside my coat. Ignoring the trembling in my hand, I gave the door three steady raps, coughing to clear my throat.

The door swung open, and there, standing before me, was Eren. My beautiful, beautiful Eren. He had grown at least an inch or two in height, I could tell, and on his finger, he bore a ring which resembled a poor man’s wedding band. But his eyes, they never lost that shimmer amidst all the darkness around him.

“Levi,” he said quietly, a small smile poking at the corners of his lips. “It’s you. Oh, so you did get my letter! I can’t believe you came, come on in, please!”

The same enthusiasm he had so many years ago still echoed in his spirit, but it was as if it was a more hollowed out version. And, deep inside my soul, I knew I had been the one to hold the carving knife. I followed him inside with weeks of sleepless nights wearing down my eyes, my limbs, my heart. “Of course I came,” I finally managed to say. “I’ve missed you, Eren.”

“Aw, Levi.” Eren bit down on the inside of his cheek, looking down at his hands. I sat down on the chair opposite his sofa and watched him closely, my eyes heavy with the sight of him. “I’ve missed you, too.”

As he sat there, a pair of circular specs over his green eyes and his hands clasped together, I felt an ache in my chest that hurt more than anything ever could. After all those years of being apart, I knew I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of his face. But the faunlet within him was gone, replaced by some soul I’d never had knowledge of before, and he was a new person. Eren was no longer _my_ Eren, and I realized in that moment that I was never _his_ anything; just a mere corpse of a man who had ruined his chance at having innocence, at experiencing adolescence like every other teenage child should.

“So,” I finally began, pulling out of my thoughts, “you… you’re married.”

“Yeah,” he beamed. “Yeah, I am. Her name’s Annie. She’s… wonderful, really.”

“That’s good,” I replied, although in my heart, I did not feel at all _“good.”_ “Does she know?”

“Know what?”

“About me. About… your life.”

Eren shook his head, and I wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or almost disappointed. “I told her you’re simply my stepfather. That’s all she knows.”

“I see,” I said. “That’s… most likely for the best, yes.”

“Mhm.” Eren sighed in that voice of his- it had not changed one octave since I last saw him- and scratched his neck, seeming rather sad about something. “Please tell me you’ve at least figured it out by now.”

I raised an eyebrow, my feet shuffling as something inside me stirred. “What do you mean by that, Eren?” I asked rather wearily.

“About where I went. You know who it is that took me, don’t you?”

“No.” The word was cold and blunt and tasted foul in my mouth. After all these years, I had still never managed to figure it out. “No, Eren, I don’t.”

“It was Erwin,” he said. “Erwin Smith.”

“Who?”

“Can’t you remember? The playwright! Oh, Levi, it was him who was following us the whole time. He took me.” Eren coughed a bit, and I was afraid to realize he sounded ill. “He wanted me to star in these films of his. Dirty films, Levi. He wanted me to do things with other boys and girls. But I told him no and willed him to hell, and then I fled and found Annie somewhere along the line. And now everything is good and I’m here!” Eren smiled and fiddled with the small ring on his finger after he finished speaking.

It is not sufficient to say that I felt sick. I felt _vile,_ awful, drastically horrendous. It was as if Eren’s words had taken a dagger to my body and made terrifyingly deep incisions along my spine. Erwin Smith had stolen my Eren from me. He stripped away our chance at eternity. He ruined my beautiful faunlet.

“Levi?” Eren’s voice pierced through my thoughts, forcing me out of them with hands gentle and callused. “You look rather ill. Are you all right?”

“Run away with me, Eren,” I whispered, not looking at him. “Come with me and you can leave this all behind. Don’t you want that? To live with me again?”

“Levi…”

“Oh, come on, it must be true, mustn’t it? Come with me, you will never have to worry about another thing again. You’re supposed to live with me, grow with me, _die with me,_ Eren. That’s how it’s supposed to be. I love you.”

Eren’s eyes scanned mine and all he could do was shake his head. “You’re crazy,” he whispered. “You’re crazy.” He held his breath and rubbed at his kneecap. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“Of course. I’m- I’m fine,” I said.

“I would sure hope so. But anyway, I’m okay now. Really. Annie and I are gonna have our baby in December. I remembered how your birthday is on Christmas, so I… I sorta smiled at that, y’know?”

“Congratulations on that,” I said, but I was distant. My mind was elsewhere. “Eren, may I ask a question?”

“Sure thing. Shoot.”

“Can you… ever forget what happened?” I asked, my voice hoarse. Eren stayed silent at that. I shook my head and shuffled around, playing with stray papers in the pockets of my coat.

“Oh, Levi, please don’t look so sad. Everything’s all right now.” He reached out a hand to graze mine, but I quickly snapped it back, death in my heart and no light left in my eyes.

“Don’t touch me,” I begged. “I’ll die if you touch me.”

“Levi, oh, please-“

“I wish you and Annie the best of luck with your baby,” I said, tossing an envelope on the coffee table addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Eren Jaeger. Eren scrambled to retrieve it and opened it as I slowly stood up from the chair.

Upon seeing the cash I gifted him with, his eyes widened, like a surprised character in one of his old comic books from his teenhood. “You’re giving us four thousand bucks?!” he exclaimed, counting the bills again and again. “Oh my god- Levi, thank you so much.”

“I will see you again someday,” I promised, although I knew that my words were a lie. “Best of luck. Really.”

Eren coughed again as he put the money in his pocket, standing up to walk me to the door. “Bye, Dad,” he said, sending yet another unintentional stab into my chest as I stepped out onto the porch.

“Goodbye, Eren.” I walked to my car and sat in it for the longest time. Oh, cruel Lord, I could still feel a shard of his soul trapped in the passenger seat next to me. “Eren,” I whispered his name a final time as I pressed my head back against the headrest of my seat. I opened my eyes to see him waving at me from the porch, his sweater sleeves far too big for his arms. But for a moment, oh, if only for a moment, his faunlet self shone through to me. His glasses disappeared and his hair was once again shaggy and matted together. His baggy sweater was replaced by his half-buttoned dress shirt, and he giggled at me, swinging around the wooden pole that supported the awning over the porch. For a moment, our love was whole again, and when the moment was over, I drove away. If I hadn’t lost the ability to cry centuries ago, tears would have been bubbling in my grave eyes.

Readers, I want you to know that I do understand that I am the reason Eren’s childhood innocence was taken from him. I regret not giving him the ability to live a normal life. But, my dear readers, while I regret what happened before that last goodbye, I regret nothing of what came after.

I realized now that I had only one sworn enemy under God’s hellfire sky, and his name was Erwin Smith. He was a thief, one of Satan’s dirtiest demons who had been out to get me from the start. And I was going to kill him.

 

I eventually found myself at the door of his grand mansion, pacing and pacing the porch of the structure. I wasn’t going to knock. He deserved no form of civilized introduction nor conversation; he deserved only death, and so death he would receive. I opened the door quietly and stepped inside, trying to see if I could sense his whereabouts in the house.

I sauntered cautiously up the stairwell and reached a thin wooden door at the top. Just as I reached out to hold the doorknob, it swung open, and Smith himself soon walked past me, seeing me but not making any form of acknowledgement of my uninvited presence. He was wearing only an untied bathrobe and held one of those expensive Cuban cigars in his hand, the crude bastard.

I followed him silently until he reached the next room, where he turned and faced me at last. My hand never once moved from my coat pocket, where I stashed away a hidden hand pistol that I was going to use only for him. It held eight bullets. “Now, who are you?” he questioned. I was appalled that such a stupid question was the first thing to come out of his mouth. “Are you Kitz Weilman? An actor? I mean, I suppose you look nothing of him, as there’s no particularly striking resemblance… Or perhaps you’re Ian Dietrich?”

“I am neither of those,” I said. “My name is Levi Ackerman.”

“I’ve never heard of you. Do any good work?”

“I’m not an actor.”

He brought me to sit down across from him in a couple of chairs in the room, paying more mind to his cigar than he did to me. After sitting down, I spoke very slowly and clearly to him. “Have you heard of a boy by the name of Eren Jaeger?” I questioned. “Because, you see, I’m his father.” I pulled my pistol from my pocket very subtly, holding it in my hand as if it were no deal at all.

He glanced at me warily, turning away and fiddling with his ashtray so he wouldn’t need to make eye contact with me. “You’re the father, eh?” he said quietly.

“He was my son. My child.” I polished the dirt-ridden silver of the gun with my coat fabric, my mouth never once showing anything but a blank frown.

“Children are a complicated matter, certainly,” he said, pulling a new cigar from the pocket of his bathrobe. “Say, do you have a lighter?”

“I want you to concentrate, Mr. Smith,” I said. “You’re about to die. I’m going to kill you.”

He stared at the barrel of my gun as I held it out before me, showing fear in his eyes but not in his actions. “Certainly you wouldn’t–”

I cut off his ridiculous statement by shooting the chair he sat in, forcing him to jump. “Listen to me right now,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m asking you a question now, Smith. Do you want to be killed sitting or standing?”

“Please, sir- let me think. Let me think about this.”

“There’s nothing to think about. Remember Eren Jaeger. You remember him.”

“I remember him, I remember. I understand, I made a mistake. But please, Mr. Ackerman, just–”

He barreled into me, knocking me to the floor. I dropped the gun and he attempted to grab it first, but I beat him out quickly. I had to be at least ten years younger than the dirty old lad. “You cheated me,” I hissed. “You cheated me from love, from life, from letting him breathe–”

“I did no such thing.” Erwin shook his head, not making any effort to tie his bathrobe shut. “You see, Mr. Ackerman, it was not I who forced him to come with me, but it was he who told me to take him to a better home. A place where he could be free.”

“You’re a liar.”

“I am not.”

“You are a _liar!”_ I repeated, shooting at him. At that, he began running like he was mad down the halls of his house, me chasing not far behind him. I followed him into what I assumed must have been his bedroom and didn’t think about it for a second before pulling the trigger, sending a bullet straight through his stomach. I shot him again, this time through his right chest, and again and again, sadly missing those times. Once I hit him again, deep red liquid began pouring from his disgusting mouth. And, finally, once he had crawled up onto his bed, blood staining the crisp white sheets, I shot a final time, ending his life once and for all. He got what he deserved, and in turn, I got what I had longed for. That man was dead.

 

That was the easy part. The hard part was driving away from all the police sirens that chased me down every road I turned.

Some came on motorcycles, others in their cruisers. All of them were shouting and demanding I pull over for my arrest. I did not care what happened to me then. I did not regret my actions for one damned moment. My hands and my gun were still covered in splatters of Erwin’s blood.

I finally decided to pull my car over. I parked in a field and exited the car, looking around at all the dying plants that surrounded me. The police chased after me as I trotted down the side of the grassy hill, and I didn’t mind. As I stared out into the horizon, one thing stood out to me: off in the distance, I could hear the clamor of children playing somewhere, laughing and screeching and singing all together. For the first time during that entire murderous day, I found myself bearing a regret. I replayed Eren’s name in my head again and again until I could no longer remember his voice. His voice belonged there, in the mix of the children’s calls, but would never be.

 

This, dear readers, is where my story ends. I can never again see another face without being reminded of him, of the chance at love we had but didn’t.  I can feel an emptiness aching greatly in my chest and it is not fair that Eren is blossoming. He is growing at last, without the shadow of the maleficent Levi Ackerman hanging over his head. As he breathes in the sunshine for the first time in his life, I am wilting. And now, as I write my final entry, I am thinking of heaven and hell. I am imagining the angels singing, the demons screaming, the eternity that drones on and on in my mind. But somewhere in the middle of it all, I can hear Eren’s voice one last time, calling out to me in a whispered giggle. And this, my Eren, is the only immortality you and I may ever share.

 

\---

_Mr. Levi Ackerman died in prison of takotsubo cardiomyopathy on November 16, 1950._

_Eren Jaeger died in a car accident shortly after the death of his wife Annie and stillborn child on December 25, 1950._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (the end.)  
> hit me up on my [tumblr,](http://doujinbag.tumblr.com) dudes.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://spookymileskane.tumblr.com) / [instagram](http://instagr.am/and.a.smile)


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